Czar wanted! Maybe they should post on Craigs List
3 Generals Spurn the Position of War Czar – washingtonpost.com — Isn’t the secretary of Defense (who was formerly named the Secretary of War) supposed to do this? What is wrong with these people?
The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation.
At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position, the sources said, underscoring the administrations difficulty in enlisting its top recruits to join the team after five years of warfare that have taxed the United States and its military.
related link:
Dave Ross’s funny commentary (MP3)
Looks like I’ll have to take Rasputin’s position.
Wanted: Scapegoat. Temporary Position.
The Daily Show had a blast with this War Czar idea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjRbV7O5bvE
To bad we can’t call for early elections. It seems the current office holder doesn’t want to do his job.
makes perfect sense – how is one supposed to establish a legitimate monarchy without appointing a few czars first?
What’s Rummy doing these days? He’d be perfect.
The difficulty in filling this position may be a simple matter of using the wrong terminology. Maybe they’d have greater success in finding a “War Chancellor” or even a “War Pope.” Maybe the word “czar” simply doesn’t have the appeal that it once had.
At the bottom of the list for replacement titles would be “Ayatollah of War.”
I hope this is a ploy to bring back Rumsfeld.
#8 – Ploy is right.
Lets get Rummy back – we need someone who tells the US soldier to just STFU and die.
Actually it has been turned down by FIVE retired generals already… they are running out of possible candidates. One of them famously said “Take that job and become a loser… no thanks” when asked about it.
The way our government is being run is just plain shameful. It’s becoming quite embarrassing to be an American.
#10 – Hey, you know what? You go to war with the army you have not the army you wish you had. Oh, and Mr. Rumsfeld has a little more tact than how you phrased it.
#12
And that’s the difference between telling a woman she had too many cookies or telling her she’s as fat as a cow.
How about “Warlord”
State doesn’t answer to the Secretary of Defense.
#6 – Don’t be stupid. Every President has had special appointees for one thing or another, and Bush didn’t invent calling them “czars.”
However.
Don’t we already HAVE a war czar? Isn’t he called the Commander-In-Chief? Man…this guy is a self-fulfilling prophecy. When Bush was elected the first time many said he was going to be a lame duck, and for around two years after 9/11 he was sort of leading…and then apparently he decided that he’d rather be exactly that; a lame duck.
I can’t wait to vote for Rudy.
“Don’t be stupid”
Touchée! You’re almost more intelligent than SN.
I’ll do it.
Get ready to stand up with extreme prejudice, Iraqis, ’cause we’re standing down.
And Taliban, remember all those years ago what it was like to be on the US’s front burner? Get your asbestos drawers on, you whack jobs, ’cause its gonna get warm.
A pet peeve of mine – why is the word for the Russian emperor spelled with “cz”, which is Polish, rather than “Ts”, which is Russian, when it’s used in English?
#12. Hey you know what? You go to war with the Army you PAY for. There was more money lost in fraudulent Haliburton over-charges than would have been needed to up armor every Humvee ever made?
That “You go to war with the army you have not the army you wish you had” crap may have been a SOMEWHAT justifiable excuse in 2003, but what about 2004, or 2005, or 2006, or 2007?
If neocons had actually served in the armed forces maybe they’d understand…. but that’s like saying if Bush only had ethics.
1.) Up-armored Humvees are a short-term solution and not that effective. How many striker vehicles could have been bought with these “over-charges”? You place the blame on Bush, but it could easily be placed on Clinton. Better yet, how about stop placing blame and come up with some coherent, well-structured arguments and ideas.
2.) For the production of military goods- since 9/11 the U.S. has been operating close to its production possibility frontier. Currently, a lot more vehicles, that are better than the Humvee, are starting to emerge in Iraq, like Cougars & Strikers, but these things take time.
3.) Donald Rumsfeld was a navy pilot. Boooya-skee daddy.
#20
A. It didn’t seem to take as much time 60 odd years ago. As to our “production possibility frontier” – BTW – I like that; we have more than enough capacity to produce these things faster – the real problem is that no one has the balls to put the economy on anything like a war footing. If this war is so important – WHY not back that up by marshaling economic resources to get it done.
B. Yes I blame Bush –
1) He started the useless war in the first place.
2) Knocked off the one guy who was actually keeping the lid on the region & counter balancing Iran.
3) He bungled the war by not committing the necessary resources (he and your pal Rummy
4) Fired or hounded out the the army the one guy who told him the truth about what was going to be needed.
5) (my personal favorite) When Daddy sent the family fixer to help him deal with this back before 2006 election, sonny boy is so arrogant that he blows it all off.
In closing, you want “coherent, well-structured arguments” stop buying the FOX news line & burping back Bush lying points of “its NEVER duhbya’s fault – it’s Clinton’s or the dog’s or the tooth fairy’s.
BTW I stand corrected Rummy was a pilot. I must have been thinking about his masters – Cheney, Wolfawitz, Bush, DeLay etc.
Boo-ya – right back at you.
War Czar = Designated Fall Guy
18: I like “Caesar”, the english spelling. He was, after all, the first fascist. Amazing we keep using the title. Seems to fit in with the ideology of the current inhabitants of the White House. And yes, I know Clinton had a drug czar. He was a pretty good Republican president overall, tho.
20: point 1: No, you can’t Blame Clinton. It’s been six years since the war started. More than enough time and money has been spent on everything but the damned armored vehicles. It’s Bush Bush Bush’s fault. Remember the Rumsfeld telling the soldier who asked him about this very point: “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want”, as if he somehow wasn’t in charge of getting funding for the f-ing army. It’s three years since he told the soldier to go Cheney himself.
Let Clinton’s penis go, please… grab Bush’s. At this rate, Bush will be responsible for nothing since Clinton left office until Bush leaves office. I assume Bush will be responsible for all that happens the eight year period after the Democrats take the Presidency? [crickets chirping] Didn’t think so. So he’s reponsible for nothing. Explains a lot.
#22 – I’m not going to get into an Iraq War debate, you already have your mind made up. By the way, I don’t watch Fox News, in fact, I’m watching Al Jazeera as I type this.
#25 & #22 – On the broader subject of military production models.
Up-armored humvees help somewhat, but I remember about a year into the Iraq conflict, when everyone said we needed these to save more lives. We bought more, and the opposing force just used bigger bombs. You have treated the symptoms not the disease. Recently, the second generation IED jammers are coming online, which have shown tremendous results over the last generation models. This won’t stop IEDs from detonating completely because manual firing wires can still be used. However, this puts the opposing force at a higher cost of being caught or killed.
Do a Google search for – cougar site:strategypage.com . These vehicles are expensive, about 4x as much as a armored Humvee. In addition to the cost factor, there are few plants that are able to produce these vehicles fast enough to fulfill demand over such as short-time period. If this was started under Clinton, and with hindsight it is easy to say it should have been done, the amount of U.S. & Coalition forces killed would have been reduced.
Striker vehicles are popular, but the amount of training time for a battalion to properly use these vehicles is enormous. Not to mention that a typical Striker Vehicle costs about a million dollars.
Anybody mentioning Clinton at this stage is grasping at straws. SIX YEARS. As for military readiness, the Army Bush went into Iraq with was built by Clinton. If Bush felt it wasn’t adaquate he was president at the time and still is, so he is able to do something about it if he truly felt it was important. Too bad he thinks all one has to do to be a war leader is make pissant statements and swagger around in costumes at staged events.
#27. Yeah, if Dubya thought the army was inadequate, he certainly had the option of not invading Iraq AT ALL.
Thus the wrinkle in the “You go to war with the army have …” BS. When the war one is going to is purely gratuitous, you should pick the “no go” option, at least until you have the “army you wish you had.”
#27 & #28 –
“The Army Bush went into Iraq with was built by Clinton.” That is my point. This side-tracked discussion was started when people jumped on Rumsfeld’s case, because of the condition of the armed forces that he inherited. The infamous “you goto war with the army you have…” was made in 2004, so he did not have time to shift procurement policy around. The DOD’s process of buying goods is incredibly cumbersome, and, on average, takes decades for it to occur. There are results starting to emerge, mainly the large number of Cougars, Strikers, and Buffalo being bought and supplied to U.S. and Coalition forces.
Trying to assign blame on any President for procurement issues over such a short-period of time is a no go. I never said that I blame President Clinton, only that I could (clarify: a case could be made, saying nothing of its strength, but I think it would carry as much weight as one made against President Bush), or in other words, it is a very debatable issue. As a side note, I have nothing against President Clinton, he pushed NAFTA through, I only wish that he would have done more to buy and supply better military goods.
#29. My point is not that the condition of the Army at the time of the Iraqi invasion is Bush’s fault or Clinton’s fault or Rumsfeld’s fault.
My fundamental problem is that they went into this thing with starry-eyed (“we will be greeted as liberators”) optimism. They planned for best- case, which did not require a significant # of up-armored humvees (forex), because there was not supposed to be a prolonged insurgency.
Forced optimism is a way of dodging the hurdles that could have slowed down the rush to war. If you make yourself believe that the Sunnis will quietly step down from power, and that Al-Queda will not move in, and pro-Iranian Shiites won’t have a problem with the Great Satan setting up shop, you can go in with 185k or so soldiers, and not worry about securing the borders or the arms depots.
As a war of choice, and not a response to an attack (Afghanistan) or immediate crisis (Korea), there is no excuse whatsoever for the Pentagon not to have been prepared for the worst case instead of hoping for the best case. If we are just talking adequate equipment and personnel, we could have waited 5 years to have enough armored Humvees and an expanded army to completely occupy Iraq.
Saddam was no more a threat in 2003 than he was in 1998, so there was no reason not to wait until 2008, if that’s what it took to have the ducks in a row for Desert Crossing (the post-Gulf War plan for invading and occupying Iraq) and its 300k troops.
Of course, by then the post-9/11 hysteria would have died down and we wouldn’t have gone to war. But the Bushies knew that when they rushed us to war, didn’t they?
29,
I’d love to see examples of inadaquate military supply or quality of equipment prior to the Iraqi war.