Iraq: Wishing for Whistleblowers

A piece yesterday in the NYT about an ex-British diplomat who parted ways with his country's foreign service after testifying to intelligence lapses over Iraq's weapons program got me thinking: what would have happened if, two or three years ago, a chorus had arisen among the sitting military leadership, State Dep't and Pentagon policymakers and others in government decrying the direction of our policies to try to stabilize Iraq? Would we be in a better position now and, if so, are there ways to ensure such silence doesn't hobble the effectiveness of our policymaking going forward?

The most famous example of official heresy concerning the occupation of Iraq came from General Erik Shinseki, former Army Chief of Staff, who was criticized and snubbed by his Pentagon superiors for telling the Senate Armed Services Committee in February 2003 that the mission would require several hundred thousand US servicemembers to be done right. Three and a half years later, in November, 2006, General John Abizaid admitted that Shinseki had gotten it right.

Shinseki's fall from grace was widely cited as having a chilling effect on other military and Administration personnel. While retired generals have spoken out loudly against the course of the war, those still in uniform have been mostly silent. Accounts suggest that the retired generals were motivated in part by their conviction that the mistakes of Vietnam-and the silence of top military officers as those errors unfolded-must not be repeated. But to the extent that avoiding a pattern of silent acquiescence in a failed and deadly war requires cultural change in the military, Iraq suggests that the transformation hasn't yet happened.

It's impossible to measure the Shinseki effect, or to know what information or opinions might have come to light had the Administration better tolerated dissent. What is certain is that years of Iraq policy have been made in an environment of remarkable opacity as far as how well the effort was going, the motives and strength of the insurgency, and the efficacy of various US tactics.

With more than 130,000 US troops on the ground, its hard to imagine the American public would not have gotten a straighter story had our military men and women (as well as civilian counterparts) felt able to speak more freely. Had we known that Donald Rumsfeld's dismissal of the insurgents as an isolated core of "bitter-enders" was wishful thinking, we might have mounted more aggressive counter-insurgency tactics years ago, before the militias had grown as sophisticated as they now are. Had we mounted the battle for Baghdad and the surge years ago, it might have stood a chance to succeed. While its true that the failings of the war effort have been evident for quite some time, only recently has the bleak picture been so unmistakable to push the Administration's reassurances and gambits over the edge of perceived plausibility.

Apart from Shinseki, its hard to name a single other military official who broke ranks to offer an alternative assessment of the war effort. It is almost certain that there were some, maybe many, who privately disagreed with the Administration's approach but were afraid to speak. The "fog of war" in Iraq proved so thick that no one could penetrate it with a clear-eyed assessment of the folly (even Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara - the ultimate hawk of his era - resigned in in 1968 once he became convinced Vietnam was unwinnable). At this point, its hard to believe that more people involved along the way in Iraq policymaking and execution don't wish they had chosen to speak out way back when.

What would it take to create an environment in the military and the policymaking apparatus that invited contrarian views and truth-telling in the face of official positions? This matters not just to help avoid future Vietnams and Iraqs, but more generally in terms of ensuring that we properly interpret the many challenges that confront us, rather than convincing ourselves of truths that are politically convenient for those in power. When I worked at a management consulting firm, one of the principles espoused was the "obligation to dissent," although even there, in practice, bucking your superiors wasn't necessarily easy.

After the Iraq WMD debacle, there's increasing emphasis on the importance of dissent in intelligence circles. Some of the methods being adopted reportedly include an ombudsman to hear out dissenters and various parallel processes aimed to avoid groupthink. Maybe some of these merit wider application within the military brass, State Department, and NSC. Offering Congressional oversight committees more direct access to personnel at various levels in the hierarchy might also help.

The next Administration will also send critical signals in choosing how to deal with the first few dissenters who come forward in any arena - be it foreign policy, budgets or any kind of official fraud. It will be critical to send a message that reasoned dissent will be not only tolerated, but invited in the interest of better policymaking.