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August 14, 2003, 8:45 a.m.
Purge of the Princelings?
Moving toward jointness.

When Congress gets back from its August recess, you'll hear some
caterwauling about how Big Dog is conducting a political purge of the
Army. But what is going on in the Army right now is apparently not
directed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and is not even a
purge. But it may be the beginnings of one.

As soon as Mr. Rumsfeld took office, his plan to transform America's
military ran into various levels of resistance in each of the
services. The Navy was shaken by the thought that the aircraft
carrier would have to evolve from its current form. The Air Force
didn't want to hear that its new fighter - the F-22 - wasn't needed
as much as it had been in the Cold War. But nowhere in Fort Fumble
did he encounter utter refusal to change except in the Army.

According to an Army source, shortly after his accession Mr. Rumsfeld
walked into the Tank - the vault-like conference room on the fourth
floor of the Pentagon in which top-secret matters can be discussed
freely - for a meeting with the Clintons' Army chief of staff,
General Eric Shinseki. Shinseki is the protégé of Hawaii Senator
Daniel Inouye, and as political as his mentor. In that meeting,
Shinseki tried to give Big Dog the Don Corleone treatment. Let me run
things my way, said Shinseki, and I'll make you look really good on
the Hill. But forget about transformation. The Army doesn't need it,
and we don't plan to do it. Rumsfeld, to the surprise of his
interlocutors, declined the offer they thought he couldn't refuse.

Shinseki should have been fired. That he wasn't is a tribute to the
White House's fear that Sen. Inouye - ranking Democrat on the
Appropriations Committee - would take his revenge, with ballistic-
missile defense the most likely target. Shinseki stayed and the Army
stood fast against change, insisting that its 1950s Cold War culture
and configuration should remain. In essence, Shinseki chose
irrelevance, taking the Army off the table as a tool of national
policy and defense.

Shinseki's choice of irrelevance was demonstrated convincingly in the
Afghan campaign. When Big Dog asked what the Army would need to
defeat the Taliban, Shinseki wanted at least six months to assemble
and move what amounted to the entire Army. When the Afghan campaign
began on October 5, 2001 - less than a month after 9/11 - the Army
(except for the Rangers and other Army special ops, who performed
superbly) watched from home. Privately, Shinseki called the Afghan
campaign a "police action," something the Army shouldn't be involved
in.

Shinseki's retirement two months ago coincides nicely with the
planned - but yet unannounced - retirement of Inouye at the end of
his current term in 2004. Shinseki will run for that seat, and most
likely will win. He'll have Inouye's support and will claim credit
for placing a $1 billion brigade of his pet "Stryker" armored
vehicles in Hawaii, where they will be an expensive political
ornament.

Shinseki's departure doesn't end the problem. His legacy is an Army
of rigidity, commanded by his faithful. In four years as chief of
staff, Shinseki personally chose about 40 colonels for promotion to
general each year, as well as a proportional number of generals for
promotion to two-, three-, and four-star ranks. These hundreds of
generals were promoted based on their fealty to Shinseki's view of
what the Army should be, and how it should fight. In Shinseki's view,
the Army was only meant to fight wars such as World War II in which
massed armies met, or to engage in the feckless U.N. peacekeeping
missions. Only those who agreed with that view were given stars under
Shinseki. It is that view - and those who insist on it - that the
Army most urgently needs to shed.

To replace Shinseki, Rumsfeld needed someone who wasn't mired in the
Cold War. After Gen. Tommy Franks (and, reportedly, at least two
others) turned him down, Rumsfeld took the very unusual step of
bringing a general back from retirement to do the job. Peter
Schoomaker is a former Delta Force operator, later commander of Delta
Force, and also of Special Operations Command. Soon after he was
named, Schoomaker - through the acting chief of staff, Gen. John
Keane - began the job of ridding the Army of obstacles to change.

So far, at least six of Shinseki's cadre have been given their
walking papers. Among them are some of the worst obstacles to
progress, and greatest devotees of political correctness. At the top
of the political correctness pyramid was Lt. Gen. Dennis Cavin,
commander of the Army Accessions Command. ("Accessions" is
Pentagonese for recruitment.) Cavin, sources say, was solely focused
on recruiting minorities and women. Any other subject was simply not
worth his attention.

"Jointness" is one aspect of transformation that has been displayed
in both Afghanistan and Iraq. "Jointness" means combining elements of
one or more services to train and fight together, usually for a
particular mission. It cherry-picks parts of the services and knits
it together with the result being much more than the mere sum of the
parts. In cases such as missile defense, it translates into huge cost
savings. Gen. Joseph Cosumano, Shinseki's commander of the Army's
Space and Missile Defense Command, threatened the success of the
joint ballistic-missile-defense plan by insisting that the Army's
role had to be separate. Cosumano is another who should have been
fired, but wasn't. Now he is. And so are Lt. Gen. John Caldwell, Gen.
Paul Kern, and Lt. Gen. Charles Mahan. Each of the three had charge
of some part of the Army's weapon-system acquisition mess.

Instead of following Rumsfeld's orders, Shinseki slow-rolled
transformation. He rolled it aside entirely on the wheels of his
central "transformation" initiative, the "Stryker" interim armored
vehicle. Stryker - a 38,000-pound machine incapable of fighting a war
for too many reasons to list here - is a $12 billion tribute to the
U.N. peacekeeping missions of the 1990s. Caldwell fought for the
Stryker, in denial of its failure to meet mission specifications and
repeated cost overruns. Kern, one of the architects of Stryker, was
kept on by Shinseki for a year after the law required his retirement.
Mahan was Shinseki's deputy chief of staff for logistics and part of
this same inner circle. Stryker's future is uncertain. It should be
cancelled.

Lt. Gen. Johnny Riggs was Shinseki's director of the Army Objective
Task Force, supposedly the office in charge of transforming the Army
according to Rumsfeld's plan, but actually the office in charge of
obstructing it. When Rumsfeld asked for an Army timetable for
transformation, Shinseki and Riggs came up with a plan that would
have taken 30 years to perform. By the year 2032, that plan - based
on buying all sorts of things including Stryker - would have provided
the "future force." When Rumsfeld rejected that, Riggs and Shinseki
backed off by twenty years, but still effectively precluded
transformation.

With those men going, the question quickly becomes, why only them?
The last time a new leader had to force a cultural change on the Army
was in 1939, and the parallels to this time are very direct. Like
Rumsfeld bringing Schoomaker out of retirement, FDR catapulted Gen.
George C. Marshall from one star to four overnight. Between June 1939
and June 1940, Marshall fired 54 generals and 445 colonels in an Army
numbering only about 225,000. Today's Army numbers about 480,000.
Schoomaker's success as chief of staff will not be measured by how
many of Shinseki's political princelings he fired. To force the
cultural change the Army needs, many more heads will have to roll.
But whose?

The criteria can't be too difficult to divine. First any general like
Shinseki, whose political ambitions interfere with his willingness to
carry out civilian orders, must go. That's not implementation of a
competing political agenda. That's what the Constitution requires.
Second, those who adhere to Shinseki's view that the Army has a role
only in massive wars or in peacekeeping missions, and nothing in
between must go. The Big Green Machine must be changed from its Cold
War garrison culture to a force that thinks, adapts and moves
quickly, and gets to the battlefield before the enemy escapes.

Third, those generals who - like Cosumano - oppose "jointness" cannot
command effectively in the war we are now engaged. Our Army has to
train and operate - which means sharing resources, not fiefdom
building - with the Air Force, Marines, Navy, and Coast Guard as
never before. Those not on the jointness train have to be left at the
station. Fourth, there are a lot of bureaucrats who are generals. As
one of my friends, who is a real warrior-intellectual often reminds
me, no one is beatified by having a star pinned on each shoulder.
There are, I am sure, future Grants, Pershings, Pattons, and Bradleys
out there. Let's hope Gen. Schoomaker finds them, and promotes them
before Senator Shinseki starts blocking the promotions of those he
doesn't favor.

- NRO Contributor Jed Babbin was a deputy undersecretary of defense
in the first Bush administration, and is now an MSNBC military
analyst. He is the author of the novel Legacy of Valor.

[centurion316]

I don't know where Jed Babbin gets his information, but I have never read anything so completely at odds with the facts. I don't really know where to begin, but I guess it just helps to prove the old addage - don't believe everything you read - even when its in National Review. I guess I'll take on a few of the most egregious errors, and then let the article stand on its own.

His legacy is an Army of rigidity, commanded by his faithful. In four years as chief of staff, Shinseki personally chose about 40 colonels for promotion to general each year, as well as a poportional number of generals for promotion to two-, three-, and four-star ranks. These hundreds of generals were promoted based on their fealty to Shinseki's view of what the Army should be, and how it should fight.

Anyone with the least rudimentary knowledge of how the Army works understands that this statement is laughable. Brigadiers are chosen by a promotion board whose procedures have been fine tuned over the last 30 years to preclude any hand-picking by anyone. Ask someone who has served on one of these boards, or been selected by one. This scenario can't happen. I have a Brigadier friend who was being iced by the Army over a baseless allegation about his personal conduct. The Chief of Staff had sent word that he expected him to retire. He refused. He was selected by 3 consecutive boards for promotion to major general. You can game parts of the system, but not promotion boards, despite the urban myths to the contrary. Three and four stars are another matter. Selection for these appointments has traditionally been made by the Chief of Staff along with the Secretary of the Army. The Sec Def and President have normally gone along with service recommendations. The Clinton Administration played total hands off on this after getting burned over the homosexuals in the military issue. The services had almost complete free reign to chose senior leaders. Rumsfeld changed all of this. He personally makes the decision, and this is one source for the friction between the services and the SecDef.

But forget about transformation. The Army doesn't need it, and we don't plan to do it. Rumsfeld, to the surprise of his interlocutors, declined the offer they thought he couldn't refuse.

The Army started Transformation long before Rumsfeld showed up at the Pentagon. The fundamental building blocks were already in place, and the Army was leading the way in DoD on many of the transformational concepts. The Army simply had the audacity to disagree with Rumsfeld's approach to the same issue. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz both embraced the view that Transformation meant a larger role for air power and a smaller role for ground forces. In the age of Information Warfare and precision weapons, you didn't need much of a ground force and the U.S. could work its will from on high. The Army disagreed with this view, especially the part that called for the disbanding of at least two Army divisions. Recent events are adding strength to the Army's argument, in my opinion.

The crux of the conflict, and the rationale for the Neocon attack on the Army, revolves around Skinseki's reported political ambitions. He is associated with Daniel Inoyue and is thought to be his designated successor in a state that has no effective political opposition party. I have no personal knowledge of Shinseki's intentions, but know that the rumors are pretty widespread. However, Shinseki's tenure as Chief of Staff of the Army was consistent with the policies, goals, and aims of his three predecessors: Vuono, Sullivan, and Reimer. The Neocons response to this unfortunate fact is to paint the entire Army officer corps as a bunch of corrupt Clintonites, knowing that as active duty officers, they can't defend themselves. What I can't figure out, is why they chose to pick this fight - they are fighting with guys who are on their side. I agree with Rumsfeld's goals for Transforming and reforming the Defense Department. His reforms are long overdue, and I hope he has the political clout to pull it off. His problem is his arrogance and unwillingness to listen to those who differ on some detail of his plan. Our current problems in Iraq might well be considerably eased if the guy would take his head out of his fourth point of contact and listen to those whose experience and judgment is at least the equal of his.

[centurion316]

More on Jeff Babbin - This article is making the round amonst my crowd. These comments were forwarded to my by a friend who is in a position to know. Enjoy.

Thanx, Sergeant Major.

I tried to find Jeb Babbin on the web, used three search engines...nothing of substance. He is referred to in several places as a former USD, never says of what flavor in the first Bush administration...probably the press guy or something as he now works for National Review Online. Had he any 'real' experience in the Pentagon, he would know that the "Tank" is on the 2d floor and is the Joint Chiefs' conference room...the 'vault like' conference room he refers to is in the NMCC and is generally known as the Ops Deps Conference Room or ODCR, and is the 'crisis management' command post - just down the hall from the Sec Def's office. I vote for the first of (Name withheld) suppositions...I think that Babbin was the Under Secretary for Absolute Horseshit.

His exposition on the CofS influence on the GO selection process is nothing more than a rehash of the way the system has worked for the last fifty years, or more...sort of the painful elaboration of the obvious. This is all political...it's about heavy-light, it's about Crusader, Comanche' and whole raft of other programs. It's also about what Shinseki said at his retirement: 'There's nothing wrong with a ten division Army, as long as you don't give it twelve divisions' worth of mission.'

Babbin's history of the deployments to Afghanistan doesn't really square with what I recall, but then what do I know? Lots of historical revisionists running around, Babbin's just another bullshit artist. By way of bolstering Shinseki's position, I would simply note his testimony before the SASC last fall on the troop strengths required and timelines for 'nation-building' in a post-war Iraq. Seems to me he was a helluva lot closer to the mark than Wolfowitz and that bunch of pansy-ass bureaucrats. Maybe we should check their plans to 'transition' troops out of Baghdad?

Some of the guys on the list deserve to be there, some don't. The new Chief certainly has every right to put his own team in place and that means some folks get out.

I hope Shinseki is Inouye's protege'...and I hope he wins. My recollection is that Inouye was a pretty reasonable soldier with the 442d RCT (DSC, subsequently upgraded to MOH; PH w/ OLC), even for a Democrat. Having served with Shinseki some twenty years ago I can personally confirm that he's a pretty reasonable soldier, too. Recall that Tommy White also bought the farm in this debacle, and he ain't exactly a slouch - either as a soldier or as a thinker. Were I going into combat, I'd damn sure look for Rick Shinseki on my team before I'd look for Mr. Babbin.

I detest civilian scumbags!

Animo et Fide