Salute and Disobey?

"Salute and Disobey?"
Lawrence J. Korb, Richard B. Myers and Richard H. Kohn, Mackubin Thomas Owens, and Michael C. Desch
Foreign Affairs, September/October 2007
POLITICAL GENERAL

Lawrence J. Korb

Desch does an excellent job of analyzing one problem in civil-military relations during the Bush administration: the failure of civilians to give due deference to professional military advice in the tactical and operational realms. But he does not deal with a more serious problem: the way in which President George W. Bush and his appointees have used military professionals to support their political agenda. The problem is illustrated both by the conduct of General David Petraeus, the current commander of the multinational forces in Iraq, and by the White House's decision not to nominate General Peter Pace for a second two-year term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

On September 26, 2004 -- approximately six weeks before a presidential election in which the deteriorating situation in Iraq was an increasingly important issue -- Petraeus, then in charge of training Iraqi security forces, published an op-ed in The Washington Post. He wrote glowingly of the progress the Iraqi security forces were making under his tutelage. According to the article, training was on track and increasing in capacity, more than 200,000 Iraqis were performing a wide variety of security missions, 45 Iraqi National Guard battalions and six regular Iraqi army battalions were conducting operations on a daily basis, and six additional regular army battalions and six Iraqi Intervention Force battalions would become operational by the end of November 2004. The Bush administration's policy at that time was "we will stand down when they stand up." Petraeus' article, accordingly, had the effect of telling the electorate that there was light at the end of the tunnel.