The Department of Deadwood
JD Johannes describes how bureaucracy makes it so hard to pay Iraqis for tips that mighty America is being outbid by insurgent groups. "To get some things done the request has to go through 15! steps of approval."
One Company Commander summed it up like this:
"They trust me with the lives of 100 men, humvees, weapons, ammo, civil affairs negotiations, classified intelligence, radios, everything. But I cannot be trusted with $20k worth of Dinar to hire a crew to build up an IP station?"
Which is interesting, because I keep hearing that the appeal of JAM and AQIZ is the money. I saw one sheet listing the rewards for tips. But the rewards were lower than what JAM and AQIZ pay. Is the coalition losing a bidding war?
posted by wretchardthecat at 6/06/2007 04:43:00 PM
2 Comments:
This is what I meant in an earlier thread by a failure of political and societal will. Sure, there was infuriating military bureaucracy in past wars. But it didn't throttle the overall war effort, as it seems to have done repeatedly in this war.
I often wondered, after the fall of Baghdad, where were the planeloads of Iraqi exchange students? Where were the confident leaders verbally bitch-slapping agenda-driven reporters and their loaded questions during press conferences? Where was the tolerate-no-bullshit attitude that got Germany and Japan on the road to economic success and good global citizenship?
cosmo,
re: infuriating military bureaucracy
There are as many flag (general and admiral) officers today as during WWII. During WWII, 16 million citizens served in the armed forces. On any given day in Iraq there are about 150,000 troops in theatre. Iraq is a prima donna rich bureaucratic environment. In short, “Have budget, will play” is the theme.
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