A government marked by its incompetence
February 1, 2007
How does our military assign people to recruiting duty? To what level of personnel is this sensitive responsibility assigned? Perhaps we should be looking for answers.
Stretched thin in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army reportedly redoubled efforts to gain re-enlistments among discharged officers. The campaign included a December mailing to more than 5,100 ex-officers. And if reports are accurate, the returns have exposed some incredible oversights in military management – blunders that can only have rekindled the grieving in many households.
The Pentagon's mailing list is said to have included the names of some 75 deceased officers, mainly casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus roughly 200 others who are recovering from war wounds.
There was this statement from an office responsible for the blunder: “Army personnel officials are contacting those officers' families now to apologize for erroneously sending the letters.â€
Well, we should hope so. But may there be a point at which such high-level mismanagement defies forgiveness? As a continuing saga of ineptitude, the current administration exceeds any in memory. As its failures pile up, we return again and again to the same explanation – the disregard, with few exceptions, that George W. Bush and his leadership team have shown for simple competence in staffing. Assignments too often have been based on a job applicant's ideological convictions, rather than a record of performance.
Examples come readily to mind. A recent choice to direct “population affairs†in Health and Human Services, the off-beat obstetrician Dr. Eric Keroack spurns the family planning goals he is assigned to pursue. There's the Army lieutenant general, William Boykin, whose challenge to the Muslim world, “Our god is greater than your god,†didn't stand in the way of his appointment as deputy director of defense for (of all things) intelligence. Numerous lesser officials have been found wanting by inspectors general in a string of departments and agencies.
From among dozens of books that have taken the Bush administration to task, one has proved especially revealing of the manner in which its various levels were staffed. This is “Imperial Life in the Emerald City,†by The Washington Post's former bureau chief in Baghdad, Rajiv Chandrasekaran. It compares the American-occupied “Green Zone†of the Iraqi capital to Dorothy's fictional stopover in “The Wizard of Oz.â€
To manage matters in a country the United States insists it intends to occupy no longer than needed, the White House established what would become its most mammoth of all embassies. This one would grow to nearly 1,000 staffers, of whom no more than a half-dozen Americans are bilingually qualified to converse with the citizenry in the Arabic tongue. (Our typical embassy staff in a nation the size of Iraq numbers 30 to 40.)
Chandrasekaran's account of the system for choosing personnel in the new embassy – as sensitive a foreign post as can be imagined – tells about all we need to know about the quality of this administration's hires for these or most other government jobs. Sole responsibility for their selection was entrusted to a civilian liaison in the Pentagon, James O'Beirne. He and his staff obtained personnel resumes from Republican congressional offices, conservative think tanks and GOP activists across the land. No Middle Eastern experience was to be required – indeed, for about half of the current American staffers in Baghdad, this would be their first trip abroad.
In lieu of questions related to the new job in Iraq, at least two applicants told Chandrasekaran they were asked their opinion on abortion and a possible repeal of Roe v. Wade. Another admits having offered no qualifications beyond his work for the Bush campaign during Florida's presidential vote recount in 2000.
Can one imagine a less defensible method for vetting applicants to undertake serious public responsibilities? The “Emerald City†revelations may help explain earlier disasters besetting the Bush administration. The most egregious staffing misjudgment came to light as the last gusts of Hurricane Katrina subsided along the Gulf Coast. That's when President Bush – having surveyed the damage through a window of Air Force One – felt FEMA's director deserving of high praise. His ill-fated words, “You've done a heckuva job, Brownie,†overlooked an agency shortcoming destined to make national scandal. Director Michael Brown, a highly qualified authority on Arabian horses, had been entrusted with another sort of task about which he knew nothing.
Perhaps it's time to heed the 1988 presidential nominee, Michael Dukakis. Our national elections, he said, should turn on competence, not ideology.
Van Deerlin represented a San Diego County district in Congress for 18 years.
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