CHEAP IS CHEAP

April 1, 2003 - General William Wallace let the cat out of the bag last week when he said that “this isn’t the enemy we war gamed against.” His comment, widely reported and just as widely contradicted, was just the iceberg tip of the struggle between the uniformed services and the Defense Department political bosses. Members of his staff privately support their boss but have expressed doubts about the effect of his candor on the rest of his career. It is hazardous to the career health of a military man to openly express criticism of your political superiors – even when events demonstrate the accuracy of your comments. Calling the balls and strikes the way you see them is not the best way to get along with your civilian bosses.

It isn’t the path to job security for a journalist either as Peter Arnett learned again this weekend. This Second Iraqi War he has been reporting from Baghdad. His reporting got him vilified in 1991 as giving aid and comfort to the enemy when he reported what he saw instead of following the approved Administration line. When the war was over, prematurely it turns out, he got canned by CNN. This time it was his observation, patently correct, that the US war plan had failed because of Iraqi resistance and that the planners were back at the drawing board coming up with a new battle plan that plunged him deep into trouble and got him canned by NBC and the National Geographic. His fatal mistake of saying it Iraqi TV made it easy to get rid of him but it is unlikely that the result would have been different had he said it in an NBC segment. Calling a ball when the Secretary of Defense is pitching isn’t good for a journalist’s job security.

We are getting small unit detail from the embedded and co-opted reporters moving with the troops. We are seeing war up close and personal with the reporters behaving like the sideline reporters at an NFL football game telling us of progress of a running back out with a twisted knee. It is Rah-Rah reporting from the scrimmage line without a John Madden to fit it into the big picture.

Retired General Wesley Clark made a stab at it this evening. In an exchange with CNN’s Aaron Brown he pointed out that the Administration’s game plan was missing an important element and that was a clear definition of the ultimate objective. He said that victory was not just getting to Baghdad nor even getting Saddam Hussein and his sons. Victory can only be achieved if we leave behind a stable middle east and a reformed Iraq without creating a new generation of Bin Ladens.

One high ranking Army officer, speaking on background, says that the Secretary of Defense wanted to wage war on the cheap and that he got what he asked for. The troops on the ground are paying the price of fitting a war into a tax cutting budget using the national credit card. The economy will pay the price later when the bills come due.