I remember an interview with George Will. When asked how often he writes his column he replied, " the government irritates me twice a week". The government and the media irritate me on a regular basis, but recently I have not been able to translate that into words I cared to publish. I was probably more disappointed by the election than I realized and the thought of writing seemed futile. I have never had any illusions about my powers to effect change through my writing, but I do want to be a voice in the discussion. This week the government managed to irritate me enough to burst through the doldrums.
The President, who clearly lives in a world about which I have no understanding, this week presented Tommy Franks, George Tenet and Paul Bremer with the Presidential Medal of freedom. These are three of the most colossal failures of public office in this new century.
After 9/11, I waited for something to happen with the CIA. This agency was charged with gathering intelligence about the behavior of our enemies. The CIA, the lead agency charged with the task of gathering information about the plans of our enemies was completely defeated. Nearly 3000 lives were lost. I waited for the president to fire the head of the agency. Instead of firing George Tenet the President allowed him to be the architect of the Afghanistan strategy. The Taliban were driven out and the country has made some stride toward democracy. On the negative we are left with a country ruled in the center by the U.S. supported Karzai and on the country by the old warlords who are growing rich producing heroin. What does one have to do to get fired by George Bush?
Tommy Franks originally proposed a quarter of a million troops for the invasion of Iraq. Donald Rumsfeld demanded that he reduce the number. Franks’s failure came in not standing up to the civilian leadership. He collaborated with Rumsfeld in creating an environment, the lack of troops, that allowed the insurgency to flourish. He managed to get out in time to avoid having his boots soiled by the mud from Abu Grahaib.
Paul Bremer also failed to stand up to the administration. He has stated that he always felt they did not have enough troops on the ground to manage the occupation. If the WMD were ever there, they disappeared because none was around to protect potential sites. G. Paul Bremer disbanded the entire Iraqi military and got rid of anyone who had ever been in the Baathist party. We did not even do this with Nazi Germany! Presumably he had something to do with the lackluster early performance of newly trained Iraqi security forces.
Richard Cohen today in the NYTimes wrote a tongue in cheek article suggesting that we should give the medal of freedom to Bernard Kerik. This would spare us the actual devastation of failure and still allow the President to take care of his buddies.
I grieve for all the earlier winners of the medal. The recognition of their great contributions to America has been diminished by the issuance of the medal to these three colossal failures.
Melvyn Polatchek
