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2012 Foreign Policy Agenda
Posted By Laura Rozen
Friday, February 6, 2009 - 12:49 AM
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A day after retired Gen. Anthony Zinni publicly voiced his frustration at the handling of what he thought was an impending appointment to become the next U.S. ambassador to Iraq, several Democratic insiders close to the Obama foreign-policy team told The Cable that they consider the Zinni affair a case study in a troubled hiring system.
"The appointment process is a disaster," said a Washington Democratic foreign-policy hand. Zinni's experience "is a reminder of how fragile the [new setup] is. There should be a level of anxiety that a senior public servant shouldn't be treated this way."
"It's a shame that this happened to General Zinni," said Heather Hurlburt, executive director of the National Security Network, a Democratic-leaning non-profit organization. "No one wants this to happen to him."
But what really happened to Zinni remains something of a mystery. In comments to The Cable Thursday, Zinni said that no one told him why he was offered and then rescinded the Iraq job. "I was never given a reason for the change," Zinni said.
"We are not talking about the personnel process," a White House official told The Cable. "General Zinni is a hero. And very talented. And we are eager to work with him."
There may indeed have been good reasons for the Obama administration not to have nominated Zinni. Sources outside of the administration suggested among them: the fact that it had reportedly chosen another general, Karl Eikenberry, to serve as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, and worries about the optics of putting too military a face on American foreign policy; pressure from the Foreign Service to give the prominent diplomatic post to someone from its ranks; and possible concern, given how several recent cabinet nominations have run into trouble, about Zinni's previous role as a top executive with defense contractor Dyncorp, which does hundreds of millions of dollars worth of business in Iraq.
But if those concerns influenced the administration's decision, it is not effectively making such a case.
Instead, General Zinni, who was angered enough by his experience to go public, has recounted his experience of being approached shortly before the inauguration about his willingness to take the Iraq ambassador or one of the Middle East envoy jobs by national security advisor James L. Jones, a fellow former Marine Corps commandant and his friend of 30 years. "To make a long story short," Zinni told The Cable Wednesday, "I kept getting blown off all week. Meantime, I was rushing to put my personal things in order."
"Finally, nobody was telling me anything," Zinni said. "I called Jones Monday several times. I finally got through late in evening. I asked Jones, 'What's going on?' And Jones said, 'We decided on Chris Hill.'"
In its brief comments on the matter, the Obama White House has sought to control damage from Zinni's frank comments and smooth over any bruised feelings. ("Obviously, the president has enormous respect for General Zinni and believes he would be on anybody's short list for a number of critical national security roles," a senior administration official said.) But it has offered very few explanations for its appointments process -- seeking, it seems, to keep the national security decision-making process a mysterious black box.
Privately, a senior administration official asked for a bit of understanding for the trials of a new team still being built and put into place. But Zinni's brusque treatment, which many others of lesser rank have described variations of and mostly kept anonymous, sheds some rare light into the somewhat secretive Obama national security structure and decision-making process.
"It's also reflective of the larger problem," the Democratic foreign-policy hand said. "Number one, they are swamped with candidates. There are 20 candidates for every job. Everybody has friends who are promising things. And they have multiple power centers they have to negotiate. That gets ugly.
"[Former Council on Foreign Relations head] Les Gelb recently said, he has never seen an administration where political handlers veto so many things coming from below," the Democratic foreign-policy hand continued. "You cannot get a dogcatcher through without" it being vetted by political operatives. Obama political campaign guru David Axelrod was said to have vetoed some recent administration job offers.
Zinni's treatment as he describes it suggests "this is really amateur hour and I can't believe they would string out a respected individual like General Zinni in this fashion unless something dramatic happened late in the game," commented one Democratic Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer.
"That was incredibly unprofessional, and somebody just plain dropped the ball. They ended up making someone who should be a strong ally into someone now skeptical of their basic competence."
"What changed between last Monday, when HRC was ready to give him the post, and this Monday, when he was told it was a no go?" the staffer continued. "The growing ethics controversies over both [deputy defense secretary nominee] Bill Lynn and [former HHS nominee] Tom Daschle. The administration made the calculation that it could not afford yet another ethics controversy, especially with so sensitive a position as the Iraq ambassadorship. ... The Dyncorps connection is the key variable."
"Zinni is a very popular general," says one former Hill foreign-policy staffer. "And he was one of the first pro-Bush generals to turn on Bush. The Democratic party has been trying to recruit military leaders of varying levels to the party, to run for office, to help in the messaging and selling of the Democratic foreign policy agenda. And [in the Zinni case], it was blown by Jim Jones, and by Obama. The one that doesn't take the blame on this is Hillary."
Asked if Democratic civilians hungry for credibility on security issues had been star-struck by the military credentials of the 6-foot-four inches tall, fluent-French-speaking Jones, AEI military analyst Tom Donnelly said, "Even if he's really good, he's got to manage an immense number of big egos, independent power bases, which have agendas of their own. Hillary got rolled. Where is the president on this?"
It's important, Hurlburt argued, not to appoint a former general to the Iraq ambassador job in particular. "We are trying to signal to the Iraqis we are committed to removing combat troops and demilitarizing the [US-Iraq] relationship," Hurlburt said. And appointing career Foreign Service officer and veteran diplomat Chris Hill to the job "is also a great signal to the professional diplomatic corps, that the ultimate diplomatic job is being given to Hill, who has taken on some of the most thankless tasks" for the government, among them, most recently, as U.S. envoy to the six-party talks over North Korea's nuclear program.
UPDATE: More today on the Zinni case from Politico's Ben Smith: "Yet on the lower levels of the transition, many among the army of Democratic foreign policy hands who labored for Obama's campaign say they have heard little since election day." The New York Times gets Zinni too.
ethics rules and employment discrimination
OK, the Dyncorp issue is bogus. One day Obama institutes strict ethics rules, and the next day gives his Deputy SecDef nominee a waiver. Here we have the case of Zinni who has clearly complies with said ethic rules and yethas his job offer revoked because of a perceived ethics problem. Of course, the post ex facto nature of the executive order meant that its by happenstance that Zinni chose employment that qualified him, while Lynn chose employment which disqualified him.
Perhaps Zinni screwed up by meeting the standards of the president's executive order. After all, you can hardly expect to get a waiver if you don't take the trouble to break the rules.
Oh, and I sincerely hope that Heather Hurlburt doesn't see a future in HR. 'Its important not to appoint a former general' (to use your paraphrase) is never a valid reason to deny employment for any job, federal or private.
38 US 4311. Discrimination against persons who serve in the uniformed services and acts of reprisal prohibited
(a) A person who.. has performed service in a uniformed service shall not be denied initial employment, reemployment, retention in employment, promotion, or any benefit of employment by an employer on the basis of that... performance of service, application for service, or obligation.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/38/usc_sec_38_00004311----000-.html
I was overbroad with "any job"
OK, to be fair, there is a job that can be denied based on military status. 10 US 113 states that a secretary of defense can't have been a commissioned officer in the previous 10 years. But rules are made to be broken, that law was on the book for less than 3 years before Congress granted a waiver to George Marshall.
Could the Iraqis have had a hand in this?
Dyncorp has it's fingers in a lot of pies over in Iraq. Providing private security for the State Department is a major part of it's business there and likely to get a lot bigger soon. Dyncorp may not carry Blackwater's baggage but Private security contractors are undoubtedly still a very sore subject with the Iraqis.
General, if you want to know what went wrong, see your 60 Minutes interview from 5/23/04, in which you accused neocons of pushing the Iraq War as a way to help Israel.
You can't say that out loud, even in 2009.
Don't you know said country is still around and still has veto power over our foreign policy?
Sorry -- has not pretty much everyone out there been offered a position only to be disappointed when the job was offered to someone else at the last minute? It just goes to show that even tough Marine Generals who have undoubtedly been through the bureaucratic career treadmill will still behave like the average accountant who has been similarly stiffed by a large employer. In this case however General Zinni has a public forum -- and the press will conflate a simple botched hire with wonkish policy implications. I've always admired General Zinni but he should have kept his mouth shut. Good luck Ambassador Crocker.
Aren't there any 'inquring minds' out there?
Has anyone asked Robert Gibbs or the President or the people named by Zinni (Biden, Clinton, Jones, or people present at meeting at State Dept James B. Steinberg,William J. Burns per NY Times)about this incident? Has anyone attempted to do so? Has anyone asked Gen. Zinni why he decided to go public about this incident, beginning - I believe - with an interview by a Washington Times reporter. That's certainly not the usual tack taken by 'old soldiers' so he must have had a reason.
Simple logic says there is more to this story than has been reported .... but it seems likely the missing facts will be ignored and remain unexplored because, unquestioned and untested and mixed in with a bunch of generalized complaints, it makes such a nice, "sexy" story.
For the record, the typical frustration of people who want a job and don't get it or don't like waiting to find out is very, very different from someone being offered an important Ambassadorship, congratulated by the Secy of State, VP and NSA, and then hung out to dry. The first is a feature of any new administration; the latter is a level of incivility and incompetence that is shocking ...... and rather hard to credit. When Chief Justice Roberts gets an apology for Biden's mild quip, it's very difficult to believe that nothing would have been said to Zinni by the Administration IF this happened as he said.
I for one would have to know more, or get some corroboration, before leaping to the conclusions reached here and in other articles on the incident.
Appreciate the feedback .... and I assume the same is true if you ask the State Dept. about the meeting Clinton and the other are said to have had with Zinni. I do hope this is one of those situations where Obama is quiet about something for what seems like too long but finally addresses whatever-it-is thoroughly. And this really isn't a "personnel" issue ..... it's a good manners and do you treat people with respect issue. Something that, in my world and I always believed in Obama's, is pretty basic, important and always worthy of discussion. This whole thing has a very "odd" feeling about it.
That's it! THAT is what is so very wrong with this scenario, so different from the way Obama and his campaign have dealt with things during the last two years.
We've just had (in my opinion, at least) 8 years of an administration that operated on the principle of "no explanations, no apologies", taking it to such an extreme that it readily insulted the citizens' intelligence. One example from an April 2004 GWB press conference is seared in my memory as the very worst example of a leader "disrepecting" both the press and the citizens who are standing behind those reporters, who want and deserve answers to legitimate questions (These are the actual words, by the way):
Q: "Why are you and the Vice President insisting on appearing together before the 9/11 Commission??"
A: "[B]ecause the 9/11 Commission wants to ask us questions, that's why we're meeting. And I look forward to meeting with them and answering their questions."
Q: "I was asking why you're appearing together, rather than separately,which was their request."
A: "Because it's a good chance for both of us to answer questions that the 9/11 Commission is looking forward to asking us, and I'm looking forward to answering them."
---- It was like he was thumbing his nose and just daring the reporter (and therefore us) to point out that he was talking utter nonsense, totally dodging the question, and not even working hard to make it look half-way convincing. (I wound up screaming, throwing things across the room, and immediately signing up to work for John Kerry!)
So now you are getting the same sort of thing from Obama? You ask a legitimate question about the administration's own actions in dealing with someone (because, frankly, we citizens want to know if our new administration is that dumb and/or rude!) In response, you're told that they won't discuss the personnel decision (i.e., why they chose or didn't choose him for a particular job) and that he's a good man. Yeah, I see the problem
This truly doesn't sound like the way Obama himself or his campaign dealt with things for the past two years. Now sometimes (often?) he was slower than I (and others) would like to come out and directly address an issue. So my remaining hope is that someone in the administration is currently cracking heads and calling people in to stand on carpets until they find out precisely what did happen ... and that when they are satisfied that they have the full story, they will then provide a genuine (and honest) explanation (as well as an apology to Gen Zinni if one is warranted).
If they choose to leave it where it is, however .... Well then, I guess I can understand if the press starts just giving one side of the story .... I do believe that up until now Obama has earned the benefit of the doubt, that we can and should he doesn't knowingly treat people that way. But, unfortunately, what's earned can be lost...
Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and some background information. I appreciate it greatly.
Nobody has commented on the fact that it might not have been a good idea to name a U.S. general--even though retired--to Iraq, a country invaded and occupied by the U.S. Armed Forces. It would certainly have created some unnecessary resentment among many Iraqis. Same goes for appointing a general as ambassador to Afghanistan.
Doesn't look good or evoke good will. In fact, it would provide fuel for adversaries of the USA to say that, since he sent a general as ambassador, Obama is following a military hard line.
Moreover, an ambassador needs a certain amount of deniability or wiggle room. If he's a retired military and the US military are involved in an unsavory incident, it will fall on him personally, and also place him in a bad position in case he has to complain to State about the behavior of ex comrades at arms.
Additionally, though there's no excuse for the White House not following elementary rules of politeness and consideration towards General Zinni, the very public brouhaha he has made of the affair bespeaks very poorly for his diplomatic sensitivity. He could have complained, but privately. But in the light of his reaction, I wouldn't give him a diplomatic post anywhere, anyhow.
Zinni could be a great Sudan envoy. Khartoum is already freaked out about Obama. Zinni - who as head of
Cent Com carried out bombing of Khartoum - would make Bashir and co. sit up a little straighter. If a diplomat is needed in Iraq to convey that the US is getting out, perhaps a military guy is needed in Khartoum to signal that this the US is serious about consequences for Khartoum should it continue its
behavior.
General Zinni along with other individuals like him are true American heros and should be treated with the greatest respect. Respect was clearly not part of this process, neither was telling the truth. It seems like politics as usual, what a shame.
The road to Afghanistan through China and Iran.
It is obviously a good idea to explore as both of these countries are important alonside Vital Pakistan.
But the most important thing for the West to consider is the Mamoth paper tiger to be tackled, which is INDIA.
It is sick elephant of no use. It shall tke centuries to be able to near recover if at all. In my view, the best solution for the region and for the west and the rest of the world is the Break-up (Balkanization) of India.
It shall usher a new era in the south east Asia, of peace and tranquality and vibrant inter-state trade.
The role of China and somewhat of Russia would be legitimized as far as the maintaining of equilibrium in the area is concerned.
Intellectuals all over the world, especially in the West and Asia need to stard pondering on this seriously.
Josh Rogin reports on national security and foreign policy from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, the White House to Embassy Row, for The Cable.
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