Yesterday, The New York Times ran a front-page story reported from Fort Leavenworth, which writer Elisabeth Bumiller calls “the intellectual center of the United States Army.” There, on a campus officially known as the Combined Arms Center, which includes the midcareer officers’ Command and General Staff College, the elite School of Advanced Military Studies and the Center for Army Lessons Learned, Bumiller describes elite officers “deep in debate… over who bore more responsibility for mistakes in Iraq – the former defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, or the generals who acquiesced to him.”
Bumiller encountered a situation in which soldiers were authorized to speak in unusually frank terms. “As the war grinds through its fifth year, Fort Leavenworth has become a front line in the military’s tension and soul-searching over Iraq,” she writes. “Here on the bluffs above the Missouri River, once a frontier outpost that was a starting point for the Oregon Trail, rising young officers are on a different journey – an outspoken re-examination of their role in Iraq.”
It’s good to know such existential questions are being raised at the war college. But by the end of the long article, it’s clear that there’s only so much a good soldier’s willing to say. “One question that silenced many of the officers was a simple one: Should the war have been fought?”
Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the Leavenworth commander and the former top spokesman for the American military in Iraq, pauses for a long time before answering. Then he says, “That’s a big, open question.”
Which I take for an answer: no. – C.J. Janovy
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I whole-heartedly agree with Major Dave Lyle�s answer in respect to his explanation of why Lieutenant General Caldwell may have answered the reporter the way he did. MAJ Lyle�s explanation of the civil / military relationship in his second paragraph was very eloquent, and in all honesty, one of the best summations of this relationship that I have seen. That being said, I would like to point out a facet to this discussion that MAJ Lyle may have overlooked.
Lieutenant General Caldwell was being interviewed by a reporter from the New York Times, and she was interviewing him as the Commanding General, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth. In this official capacity, LTG Caldwell was not able to make any comments one way or another without violating Department of Defense Directives. The Department of Defense directive in effect when LTG Caldwell made these remarks, was Department of Defense Directive Number 1344.10, dated August 2, 2004, Subject: Political Activities by Members of the Armed Forces. Section 4.1.2 outlines what �a member on active duty shall not� do. Subsection 4.1.2.1 reads �Use his or her official authority or influence for interfering with an election; affecting the course or outcome of an election; soliciting votes for a particular candidate or issue; or requiring or soliciting political contributions from others.� This is not to say that LTG Caldwell would have been trying to purposefully sway an election in one way or another by answering the question. It�s just that by giving an answer either for or against the war, he would have been doing so in his official military capacity, which could have the appearance of supporting a particular candidate or cause. Additionally, any answer that he gave the reporter concerning that issue could have been given a political spin. In my opinion, the best answer was the one that he gave, which was very neutral and noncommittal.
The Department of Defense�s issuing of this directive is not meant to place tight restrictions on military personnel and not allow our participation in the political process. Rather the directive outlines what part of the political process we can participate in and what we are prohibited from taking part in. The primary purpose for this is to ensure that the military establishment remains a neutral, non-partisan element of society, which will heed the call of our civilian leadership, no matter who sits in the oval office.
Respectfully,
Major Michael S. Flynn
Student, Command and General Staff College, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
While I certainly can't speak for my Commanding General, I will propose that there is another possible reason that General Caldwell answered the way he did besides the conclusion that the author of this aticle proposes. At first glance his question �Should the war have been fought?� seems like a simple one, but in actuality is an infinitely complex question whose answer largely depends upon on your own priority of values. Many in the faculty at CGSC, and even more of the students, are combat veterans with recent experience in Iraq, and have had highly personal experiences with one aspect of the war in specific locations. The task for both the instructors and the students at CGSC is to share those multiple experiences and lessons learned in order to try and synthesize a more comprehensive view of what has gone right and what has gone wrong in Iraq, realizing that we will never achieve a complete picture. To offer a simple answer to the question would inaccurately suggest that we could collect and weigh all of the military, economic, diplomatic, humanitarian, and moral factors involved in the war � from all sides - and apply some kind of absolute value system to determine an answer. We often wish for (and sometimes resort to) simple, absolute answers to confirm our own beliefs and refute those who disagree with us. The truth is that such simple answers do not exist, and any answer (or philosophy, theology, etc) that neatly fits on a bumper sticker is probably not a very useful one to guide your infinitely complex life with.
Another truth is that we in the military do owe allegiance to our constitutionally appointed superiors in accordance to the oaths we all take. This does not absolve us from the responsibility of giving those superiors the best possible military advice that we can, nor does it relieve us from letting our civilian leadership know about the risks associated with the courses of action that they propose, and even challenging them to consider alternatives. However, once our leadership makes a decision, we are bound to support it as best as we are able, and must subvert our individual opinions to follow the leaders the American People have chosen for us. If we decide to go outside of this system, we risk the very constitutional order that we are sworn to defend, and lose our future ability to good things from inside the system to mitigate the effects of those decisions that we wish had been better ones. While some occasionally do choose to �fall on their swords� (Major General Billy Mitchell comes immediately to this Airmen�s mind, who only gained his present rank posthumously in 2004), it is something any military member can do only once, and requires that individual to be absolutely sure that they are right and the rest of the entire institution is wrong. Again, there are seldom cases this clear cut.
So, as the author seemingly proposes, are our military officers restricted from fully expressing their opinions? Yes and no. There are ways within the system that we can analyze our profession and seek changes without being disloyal to our appointed leaders, and the academic environment of CGSC encourages its students to take a hard look at what happened leading up to and during Operation Iraqi Freedom. We will take these lessons in order to document and internalize the positives, and to avoid repeating our mistakes. But will we assume that we have the right answers, and announce them to the press without sending those inputs to others who can add their perspectives to ours and improve our overall lessons learned? Not if we�re intellectually honest about our own capabilities and limitations to discern such an answer. So if we in the military cannot give you a simple answer to this question, it does not necessarily mean that we�re afraid to make the current administration look bad, that we�re trying to dodge you, or that we�re not actively asking this question ourselves. It more likely means that we realize that we can�t give you an answer that satisfies all of the infinite number of issues wrapped up in your seemly simple - but actually infinitely complex - question. Ask us more specific and tangible questions about what went well and what we�ll do better next time, and we�ll probably have a lot more to say.
Respectfully,
Major Dave Lyle, USAF
CGSC student
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