In the run-up to the Iraq war, one argument that never gained much traction was that no matter how badly the world needed to see Saddam removed the people in charge simply weren’t up to the job. You didn’t hear it much because it doesn’t call out any particular principle or ideology, and most folks weren’t ready for the competence question yet. Needless to say, things have changed.
Change is putting it mildly, unless you mean ‘sea change.’ The public’s confidence in Bush’s management skill has practically burrowed through the basement floor. Two stories from today’s news give some idea about why. First, once again contracting fraud has made news. As Iraq contracting fraud goes this story hardly measures up to the big dogs, the familiar names who managed to disappear billions-with-a-b, but illustrates once again the freewheeling oversight-free environment in Iraq where people felt free to carry off anything that wasn’t nailed down. Second, Doug Feith, Tommy Franks’s famous “stupidest f-cking man on the face of the Earth,’ will finally get a Pentagon review of his ‘shadow CIA’ intelligence shop, the Office of Special Plans, and their odd use of shady intel.
Neither story will shake the Earth, but both help to show why you trust important jobs to capable people.