| 08 January 2007 Deep in the Heart It was a lovely dawn that broke as we passed north over the Potomac, but the skies grayed as we headed up into the mountains, and by the time we were popped out the west end of the Hole in the Wall at Alleghany Mountain, the greens and browns of the broad plateau were washed in winter gray. At the Ohio Line, the gray sky lowered right down to the road, and we hurtled into the cloud itself, pregnant with snow. Water stood in the fields the color of gunmetal, reflecting the stark angular branches of bare winter trees. Michigan was cold and a wintry mix that danced on the windshield of the truck, and when my son dropped me at the airport, the storm was beginning to organize itself. He pushed on to Lansing, classes starting this morning on the last semester of school that I intend to pay for, and I was relieved that the awful dulling drive from the Chesapeake to the flat brown dirt of Michigan was done. I did not have to worry about him falling asleep, drifting off the road, or having a deer stroll out in front of him. I waved as he drove away, fast and nonchalant. I walked into the terminal, found an earlier flight, and was back in Washington two hours later. This morning all the schools are back in session, the Congress is in place, and the Hundred Hours begins. By the end of the week I imagine there will be an improved minimum wage, lower drug prices, and higher ethical standards to live down to. There is unsettling talk about how the Israelis are going to deal with the Iranian nuclear program, and recollections about how they dealt with Saddam's weapons program a quarter century ago. We are all now in our places, with bright shining faces. The Administration has been busy reinventing itself for the last twenty-four months of its life. There is supposed to be a new Iraq policy announced this week, but we can already see the outlines of it. I am sure that more troops will be sent to the war. More important is the leadership team that will be in place. It is an interesting line-up of veterans, and the Spooks are all over it. The lines go back to Texas, of course, deep in the heart of it. It is much more than just President Bush and Karen Hughes and the other natives of the Lone Star State. Admiral Bobby Ray Inman is not visible, but I can see his handiwork in this. He has never enjoyed the limelight, career intelligence officer that he was. Most of the rancor over his nomination to be Secretary of Defense in December in 1993 has mostly faded. I can remember the acrimony at the time, the accusations from Bill Safire and others and bitter counter-charges. I don't know much, but I do know that there was far more to all that than met the eye. An unlikely coalition opposed his ascendancy, united along one of the fault lines that lies under the Beltway, no much discussed, but crucial to the formulation of United States Foreign policy. I am not going to touch that third rail, since I am a rational man. Even Admiral Inman did not lay the whole thing out at the legendary press conference in 1994 when he withdrew his nomination. But for the record, I believe the Admiral was right, and the bitter and personal campaign against him was a pay-back for his decision to restrict access to the sort of national intelligence information that permitted the successful planning and execution of the Israeli raid on the Osiris reactor deep in the heart of Iraq in 1981. I think the Admiral is more comfortable in the warmth of Austin, and away from the fires of Washington. Secretary of Defense Bob Gates had a wonderful gig going as President of Texas A&M, but he has slipped on the harness to direct the Pentagon goliath. There are those who say he lacks experience in directing such a vast enterprise, but there have been many Secretaries who have had less; Senator Cohen comes most immediately to mind, but Mr. Cheney is in that company as well. Besides, there are plenty of people in place to help him. What he brings to the office is a fresh perspective based on reality. Mr. Rumsfeld suffered no fools in his tenure, and sadly, some of the fools he could not endure were right. Assisting Mr. Gates, one of only three career intelligence officers to serve as the Director of Central Intelligence is General Jim Clapper, the no-nonsense former chief of two of the major DoD intelligence agencies, DIA and NGA. I deeply respect his leadership, and he is a steady shoulder on which Mr. Gates can lean. Clapper's ally in the brutal infighting that attended the establishment of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was General Mike Hayden, then the head of NSA and later the Deputy to Ambassador Negroponte, the first DNI. Now he is head of CIA, and the word is that with the able assistance of his Deputy, veteran case officer Steve Kappes, the HUMINTers are in the best shape in years. The {resident announced the departure of Ambassador Negroponte last week, and named Admiral John “Mike” McConnell to replace him as the DNI. Speaking in Texas a few years ago, Bob Gates noted that having a Spook rate the effectiveness of the intelligence community is “a little bit like asking the barber whether you need a haircut.” But the time of amateurs and academics is past. It is time to call in the professionals and let them do the best they can to extricate us from this mess. The military team has likewise been re-shuffled. Admiral “Fox” Fallon has been named as the first naval officer to head the Central Command. He is there because there is a strategic landscape beyond the ground fighting in Iraq, and on whatever terms that matter is resolved, there is still Iran to be dealt with, and Saudi Arabia to be defended. That will be done from the sea. If Fallon is not the most brilliant strategic thinker the Navy has ever produced, the Admiral has demonstrated time and again he is a “good soldier,” and loyal to a fault. The Army has been permitted to array itself in its theater of operations, and General Dave Petraeus has his fans and detractors. All strong personalities do, and the next months will require both strength and subtlety, which have here-to-for been incompatible attributes on the ground. I wish him well, since there is no palatable alternative. The President is asking the Senate to act swiftly on his nominations so that his people can get to work. We are driving fast into a murky horizon, gray and threatening snow. It is time to give the professionals a chance, the ones in front, and the ones who work behind the scenes. It is about time. We tried it the other way and it didn't work out that well. Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra |