Speak Truth to Power–"You're Fired"
Admiral William Fallon, Head of Centcom, has been worried for months about “dead-enders”–the remaining Neo-Con hawks in Dick Cheney’s office who still want to start a war with Iran before they leave office. Last month he finally unburdened his soul to the respected military analyst Thomas Barnett. Barnett’s conclusion:
So while Admiral Fallon’s boss, President George W. Bush, regularly trash-talks his way to World War III and his administration casually casts Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as this century’s Hitler (a crown it has awarded once before, to deadly effect), it’s left to Fallon–and apparently Fallon alone–to argue that, as he told Al Jazeera last fall: “This constant drumbeat of conflict . . . is not helpful and not useful. I expect that there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working for. We ought to try to do our utmost to create different conditions.”
Yesterday, our trash-talking President, fired Bill Fallon.
This of course is a major lesson for the officer corps. Like Shinseki and Casey before him, if you cross Dick Cheney publicly, your days are numbered.
At the same time, some younger officers who have been critical of senior commanders for not speaking up about the risks of invading Iraq now see a senior officer who did speak his mind publicly being prompted to choose early retirement.
Meanwhile in Iraq, the security gains of the last few months seem to be deteriorating.
Based on reports from February, violence may already be increasing. An independent tally by The Associated Press recorded a jump last month in the average number of Iraqis killed per day compared with January’s figures.
As I suggested last month, we may have made a devil’s bargain with the Sunni Militias, renamed “Awakening Councils”. Although the surge has been able to calm the capital, the militias seem to be asserting themselves against the local Shiite police and Army brigades both south and north of Baghdad.
In the deadliest of those attacks, a roadside bomb between the southern cities of Nasiriya and Basra struck a bus full of Iraqi civilians, killing at least 16 and wounding 22, Iraqi police officials said. But Iraqi security forces also reported deadly attacks in Hilla, Karbala, Baquba, Mosul, Kut, Baghdad and Dulia, just north of the capital.
Juan Cole suggests another reason for Fallon being canned. He didn’t believe the surge was working.
Having such a big dissenter as CENTCOM commander is inconvenient for the Republican Party at a time when John McCain is admitting that if he fails to convince the American people that the surge is succeeding, he will lose the presidency. That is, Fallon may have run afoul not of Cheney on Iran but McCain on Iraq. This may be Bush’s first favor to the Republican nominee, who after all had a career as a naval officer himself.
So while the debate about the war may have temporarily been eclipsed on the campaign trail by our economic crisis, we cannot forget the ultimate cost. William Polk who was a member of John F. Kennedy’s Policy Planning Council in the State Department, gave an amazing speech last week, which Juan Cole posted. It is essential reading. At the outset, he reminds us of the cost.
As you will know from the press, the US has suffered nearly 4,000 casualties — as of last week, to be exact, 3,958 in addition to another 482 in Afghanistan.Our wounded cannot be so precisely counted as they fall into various categories. One hears or reads the figure 30,000 — that was the figure given by Senator Obama last night, but he was wrong about it. It is only a small fraction of the total.
One of the most striking wounds is a direct result of the nature of guerrilla warfare — concussions. Concussions were not even noted until after 2003. Now it is believed that about 1 in 10 US soldiers and Marines — that is roughly 50,000 men and women — has been affected.Treating these wounded is a long-time task. Most will never fully recover. Meanwhile, they will be unable to function normally. So side effects will ripple through their communities —loss of jobs, inability to function as parents, divorces, anger, despair. And the cost of treatment will range from $600,000 to $5 million dollars a person. These “wounds” add up to very large numbers. We should not be surprised since 169,000 of the 580,400 men and women who fought in the first Gulf War are on permanent medical disability at a cost of $2 billion a year. For this, the second Gulf War, the estimated medical costs equal the combat costs or roughly half a trillion dollars.
Of course the MSM is not reporting any of this and so Bush, Cheney & McCain can pretend that their strategy is succeeding. A passive press corps leads to a passive public. Meanwhile our President continues reading from a four year old script that seems completely disconnected from reality.
“The effects of a free Iraq and a free Afghanistan will reach beyond the borders of those two countries,” Mr. Bush said. “It will show others what’s possible. And we undertake this work because we believe that every human being bears the image of our maker. That’s why we’re doing this.”
I’ve been waiting for some of the top brass to resign outright, and Adm Fallon at least took the initiative here. So “you’re fired” isn’t quite right. If Colin Powell had been prepared to do the same 5 years ago, we might not be here today.
The “W” seems to stand for Woodrow Wilson in an odd way. Mr. “no nation building” sure has changed his rhetoric.
One of the greatest advantages to admitting “it’s about the oil” is that this allows us to talk frankly about military intervention as a defensive reaction to actual attempts to cut off our access to middle-east oil. Invade and hold the oil fields if and when some power attempts to block our ability to buy the oil at the world price. But until such time, let these people work out their own political affairs.
The only legitimate argument for our continued presence right now is the “pottery barn” thing. We’re at fault for the current situation. But it isn’t at all clear to me that our presence is saving any lives or promoting a more democratic settlement. We haven’t prevented the ethnic cleansing — a part of the “success” of the surge is a statistical effect of the fact that Baghdad has more or less completed the ethnic cleansing. And every bit of progress seems to come from bargaining with autocratic tribal chieftains of one sort or another. Some democracy.
Americans forget (as if they ever knew) that our own democracy (such as it is) took about 1000 years of British and American history to take its current shape. One generation has never achieved the kind of transformation Bush is after even in our own culture.
So maybe our troops should mostly get the hell out of Baghdad and go protect the oil fields and pipelines. And didn’t Mr. Wolfowitz promise us a self-funding end game to the war? I thought that oil profits were to pay for it…
From Max Boot:
“What Fallon (and Barnett) don’t seem to understand is that Fallon’s very public assurances that America has no plans to use force against Iran embolden the mullahs to continue developing nuclear weapons and supporting terrorist groups that are killing “American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is highly improbable that, as the profile implies, the president had any secret plans to bomb Iran that Fallon put a stop to. But there is no doubt that the president wants to maintain pressure on Iran, and that’s what Fallon has been undermining.”
I had already posted this elsewhere becuase it is the same thing I was saying about torture, you don’t take something off the table, even if you don’t plan to use it.
“By irresponsibly taking the option of force off the table, Fallon makes it more likely, not less, that there will ultimately be an armed confrontation with Iran.”
As to actual grip on the surge:
“The problem is that Fallon is a newcomer to the Middle East and Iraq, while Petraeus has served there for years and is the architect of a strategy that has rescued the United States from the brink of defeat.”
We’ll see Jon, but IF Fallon is as straight a shooter as he is made out to be in the Esquire article THEN I’d be much more likely to believe his own position, that he doesn’t diagree with Bush, it is just the perception you and folks in the military have because of the article.
“Although I don’t believe there have ever been any differences about the objectives of our policy in the Central Command area of responsibility, the simple perception that there is makes it difficult for me to effectively serve America’s interests there,” Fallon said.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-fallon12mar12,0,5259335.story?track=mostviewed-storylevel
So if you believe him, you believe him. Don’t cherry pick.
Mas Boot:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-boot12mar12,0,5337128.story
Morgan-Max Boot was and is a central apologist for everything that has gone wrong in Iraq. He has not a shred of credibility left. He has been trying to start a war on Iran for three years. The fact that the LA Times continues to publish his nonsense is only a sign of how bankrupt the paper is as an institution.
Max Boot also wants to openly offer illegal immigrants citizenship if they fight in the military. He has no credibility. His military analysis is a joke as well; his new book has been panned by any competent military historian.
That’s your argument? Max Boot doesn’t deserve a response? C’mon.
I made antoher argument you skipped, IF you believe Fallon in what he said in Esquire, THEN you should beleive Fallon when he said:
“Although I don’t believe there have ever been any differences about the objectives of our policy in the Central Command area of responsibility, the simple perception that there is makes it difficult for me to effectively serve America’s interests there,”
You can’t pick and choose. Seriously, I read the Esquire article, and thought it was good. Fallon comes off great (just like Rumsfeld did) with the same writer, no?
I buy Fallon’s last statement, it is one thing to have a belief system, it is another thing to speak it on the job. Everybodyhas a boss.
So from Kaplan at Slate:
“This is nothing like the case of Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff who had his career cut short by Donald Rumsfeld for telling a Senate committee that a few hundred thousand troops would be needed to impose order in postwar Iraq. Shinseki was offering his professional judgment on a strictly military question—how many troops would be needed to perform a mission—in response to a senator’s question. Fallon, by contrast, was challenging the president’s policy—and at his own initiative.”
Fallon, who is one of the military’s finest strategic minds, may well be right. Certainly his views match those of many senior officers. But they are contrary to the president’s views, and Fallon knew this. There is much debate within military circles these days over how far, and in what forums, a general or admiral should take his disagreements with political leaders. By most standards, Fallon probably went too far, too publicly. The U.S. Constitution does call for civilian control of the military, and generally, we should be thankful for that.
BTW, if you are wrong about Iraq, and things do keep getting better, you owe Max boot a big apology.
I notice references to the idea that the occupation of Iraq would pay for itself. This is one of those things that anger many people abnut the U.S invasion.
The 1907 Hague Regulations and 1949 Geneva Conventions (to which the U.S is a ratified signatory, thus making those treaties U.S law) forbid the sequestration of sovereign resources and properties through conquest and occupation.
Which is to say you’re not allowed to make states pay for your invading them. Invasion for profit is forbidden – the idea being to remove that motive for war.
It’s one of those pesky little things that annoys people and typically why lies are told to try and establish a credible casus belli.
I’ve always wondered exactly why the U.S did invade as it never seemed to make sense (and every reason given a transparent lie). It seems to me that different people had different reasons and it was an unhappy coincidence for Iraq that their ambitions and power coincided.
It seems like Bush really thought it would be heralded as a liberation. I imagine Rumsfeld just wanted to play with his shiny toy (the U.S military), Wolfowitz and other neo-cons wanted to realise their idiotic fantasies in the real world and Cheney I expect had the most real-politik thinking.
It’s all rather depressing.
Fentex- Your point is well taken and almost never acknowledged by the press or our neo-con friends like Morgan and Max Boot.
Morgan- You keep trying to be a hardened realist on this “wars fo oil” theme, but Fentex is right, you can’t control Iraq’s oil legally by force.
Second, Fallon said what he said in resigning, because he’s a good soldier. Colin Powell has never publicly expressed his doubts about Bush’s strategy either, because he’s a good soldier.
I think Wolfowitz actually tried to couch the oil/money thing as being that oil dough would pay for the rebuilding of the destroyed Iraq… Robbing Peter to pay Paul, as it were… Shuffling the same non-existent money from one empty bucket to another as it turned out.
I’m not being a hardened realist, all of world history is on my side. All of the 20th century is on my side (this is the third war for oil). We aren’t stealing Iraq’s oil. We are making it very likely the nation with the best (most & cheapest) oil will be anti-OPEC. Bush himself has said, if they voted for us to go, we’d have to go – you want us to leave and we aren’t being asked.
Oil is at $110 and it was going higher with or without a war. OPEC as true cartel is back.
Look, if is say 24-48 mos., the U.S. has 13 bases going (say 50K troops), AT THE REQUEST OF IRAQ’S government, and violence is way down, and violence against our soldiers is negligible, and Iran’s oil receipts are growing by leaps and bounds, will you atleast grant me that then it was worth it. It seems like you are unable to accept positive results.
Jon, look you know what I’m after is total maximum output out of OPEC. If you just came up with a way of ensuring they sold at maximum production, without opening up Iraq’s taps with friends, and not sacrificing Israel, you’d HAVE ME.
I’m not a military commander and I don’t work for one. Neither am I a Pentagon suit or an employee of NSC or RAND or any of the intelligence services. So how would I know about the real reasons for Admiral Fallon’s alleged differences with the elected Commander in Chief? If I resent the U.S. footing in Iraq and its stance on Iran, and you show me that we have it by way of a respected interlocutor that Admiral Fallon dislikes that footing and that stance, then I’m apt to like Admiral Fallon—to call him foresighted and fearless, and his amanuensis astute and trustworthy. On the other hand, if I support U.S. policy viz the Near East, then I’m apt to call Adm. Fallon an insubordinate loose cannon who just may be unclear on the chain of command in our Republic.
All I really know is what my opinions are about some things I happen to have heard and believed concerning U.S. military and foreign policy in the Middle East. As a lay person without access to the map room, as it were, I’m not interested in trying to deduce a giant map from a few smuggled jigsaw pieces not even stamped “EYES ONLY”. Instead, I’m going to stick with elected, civilian control over foreign relations and the military, because that’s my only play here; it’s my only way to second-guess the players. It’s my one vote, my suffrage. That franchise was exercised the last time we shareholders hired someone to send to DC to call the shots on this stuff, and I intend to exercise it again very soon. The incumbent Commander in Chief is determined that the U.S. should bring home its endangered and exhausted troops after a greater degree of stability, security and self-rule has been achieved in Iraq. The troops with whom I and my family correspond indicate that the preponderance of serving personnel agree with that policy and respect their commanders. I choose to defer to the ranks, to the brass, and to our one and only, yet unimpeached President.
If Admiral Fallon, as a military professional, is unwilling to subordinate himself in like fashion, then I believe that he should, in keeping with the customs and traditions of the Naval Service, request deactivation. And once out of uniform he should consider it his duty to criticize the hell out of his President.
Meanwhile, the President should, as Lincoln and Truman did, consider it his duty to hire and fire his commanders until he finds one who can succeed and has the will to do so within the liberating confines of the U.S. Constitution and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
(My only other suggestion is that the next theatre commander might wish not to underestimate the Iranian threat or to let Afghanistan and Pakistan get out of hand.)
The difference between authority and leadership is how it handles honesty in it’s ranks. Leadership, I can respect even if I disagree. Authority, less so.
Hugh-Fallon clearly did the only thing open to him. Resign, and now hopefully speak out.
Never underestimate the political sensibilities of a senior military officer, particularly a very senior officer like Admiral Fallon. In my quarter- century of military service (Colonel, USAF, retired) I have known many flag officers, and never known one who was not fully aware of the impact of anything he might say about policy and politics. Very senior military officers achieve their status by virtue of their political skills.
Admiral Fallon was not surprised by his removal from the position of CINC CENTCOM. He knew that his time was limited by Bush’s patience and tolerance for dissent, which is extremely limited. Fallon has been speaking out because he believes what he says, that the US is on the wrong track with respect to Iran and the Middle East in general. He was fully aware of the danger to his career if he spoke out. I believe he did so because he thinks the issues outweigh his personal interests in continuing in uniform. He is an honorable man, and one who is all too rare in America’s military services today.
Patrick,
Whats your opinion of Petraeus?
I doubt we’ll be hearing harsh criticism from General Fallon because apart from it probably not being his style (having read interviews with him I expect his ambition and methods to be more constructive) it would be unusual for a career military man.
While in service you can’t trash talk your C.O, and that obligation doesn’t go away because you’ve been forced to resign or retire by unresolvable differences.
Having invested so much of his time in substantive diplomacy among the influential of the mid and far east I would think General Fallon will find a position to continue to contribute from, albeit perhaps ‘unofficially’.
Were I a Democratic leader of Congress for instance I’d be sure to invite him along on any trips east.
@ Fentax re “I’ve always wondered exactly why the U.S did invade as it never seemed to make sense (and every reason given a transparent lie).
Bush answered this question in the quote Jon cited above: “we undertake this work because we believe that every human being bears the image of our maker. That’s why we’re doing this.””
He thinks he is doing god’s work. Not sure how sanctioning a war that kills thousands of Iraqis and Americans fits in with the plans of the “maker”, but Bush seems to have some sort of direct relationship with the almighty, so who are we to question it, right? I just hope he hands over God’s direct line to McCain if he wins…
Also, Jon, re “Colin Powell has never publicly expressed his doubts about Bush’s strategy either, because he’s a good soldier.” That’s not exactly true. I saw him speak at Leaders in London back in 2006 where he was the keynote. Asked point blank about the war, he admitted that, had he known then what he knows now, he doubted he would have backed the invasion (at the time, news outlets focused on another point he made: that the US should talk to Iran, not invade). He also reiterated the fact that Iraq was now a civil war , and that the US needs to accept that reality. He’s been fairly vocal in his criticism of the Bush administration’s handling of Iraq in fact, pointing out that they made mistakes after the initial invasion and have handled it badly ever since.
But you’re correct the say that before he retired, he never expressed doubts. I expect you’re right about Fallon – resign and hopefully speak out.
And finally, ever reliable Morgan, if “things do keep getting better” in Iraq, it will be down to the Iraqis themselves and little or nothing to do with US intervention. The Iraqi people will be the ones who decide how they live their lives in the long term, not US foreign policy. Bush’s vision of spreading democracy around the world fails in a significant way: he thinks that democracy can be imposed through force. If the Iraqi people decide to accept a democratic political structure and it grows organically, that will be due to their commitment and willingness to make it happen. Your vision of a future where 50k US soldiers are encamped in Iraq “AT THE REQUEST OF IRAQ’S government” (you don’t have to shout, you know, we can all hear you just fine) is not democracy, it’s a police state, even if there are elections because any Iraqi government that has to rely on US force to keep them in power is never going to ask the US to leave. It’s a puppet leadership, by any other name.
The only way we’ll ever know if the invasion in Iraq has made any lasting change in the country and in the region at large is by leaving.
Korea is a not a police state. Japan isn’t. We have been building 13-14 (I think) permanant military bases in Iraq.
“the Pentagon currently owns or rents 702 overseas bases in about 130 countries”
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0115-08.htm
Sure, we are a militarized country, but bases do not equal police states. It is silly to argue this point, we set up bases, there is no civil war, Iraq rebuilds with oil receipts. They get kudos, we do not piss and moan that they aren’t really doing their end.
ZP, I think Colin Powell is a great choice for McCain (or anyone) as president. They are good friends.
I have written a new post on Iraq with considerably more detail. Let the conversation continue
http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/2008/03/13/iraq-five-years-later/
[...] Jon Taplin looks into possible reasons for Fallon’s departure here, including this suggestion by Middle East expert Juan Cole: [...]
Mr. Warstler
General Petraeus is extremely bright. He is also extremely ambitious and extremely political. None of these things are necessarily bad when said about a senior general officer. However, he may be extremely wrong and sufficiently arrogant so as to be unable to accept the possibility of error in his own judgement. That is Admiral Fallon’s apparent premise, and I’ll put my money on Fallon.
Patrick- I have heard rumors that Petraeus is so ambitious, that he would consider being John McCain’s Vice President.
[...] Guards inside Iran, the normal military chain of command is kept completely out of the loop. Two months ago, Admiral William Fallon, head of Centcom, resigned over differences with Cheney on Iran policy. Fallon’s early [...]