\jeff{krimmel}

Too Much War To Manage

Another one to file in the “truth is stranger than fiction” category:

The White House wants to appoint a high-profile overseer to manage the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but has had trouble finding someone to take the job, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have turned down the position, the report said.

Shock of all shocks, well-qualified people are turning this gig down. But it’s important to sit down and think for a minute what this means. President Bush has chosen to wage so much war that he is incapable of staying on top of everything that needs his attention.

The war “czar” would report directly to President George W. Bush and national security adviser Stephen Hadley and would have authority to issue directions to the Pentagon and the State Department, the newspaper said.

We already have a “war czar”; the more traditional name for this individual is “commander in chief”. President Bush has made it repeatedly clear that the war in Iraq is the single most serious threat to democracy and our safety as we have seen since at least World War II, and possibly ever. Given that President Bush believes the war in Iraq is of such gravity, what does it say that he feels compelled to hand over the running of this war, and the war in Afghanistan, to a czar who would have control over the Pentagon and State Department?

It’s completely absurd that the president of the United States has chosen to wage so much war that he feels he is incapable of performing his day-to-day duties as commander in chief. It seems like almost weekly this administration does something that I thought no administration in this country would ever do.