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February 09, 2008
From the ground up
Bill Ardolino posts an introduction to Iraqi politics to the Long War Journal (Part I, Part II). This is a view of the situation too complicated to fit onto a protester's banner or a thirty second television ad. Or, for that matter, into my often bleak assessment of the War as a whole. The blogosphere: Doing the work American journalists won't do. This passage struck me in particular.
“We think our system is bureaucratic … their system is even more bureaucratic. It tends to be a paper-based system. … They tend to require lots of signatures from different technocrats along the way. They tend not to delegate much,” said Brigadier General Terry Wolff, the Special Assistant to the President and the Senior Director for Iraq and Afghanistan Policy Implementation on the National Security Council.
As an example, a paper-based system of requisitions adds layers of difficulty for various provincial police headquarters getting equipment from the Ministry of the Interior. Thus, both Western observers and police officers in a Sunni province like Anbar might view equipment shortages as the product of sectarian hostility by the Shia-dominated federal government, when much of the delay is really administrative.
As an example, a paper-based system of requisitions adds layers of difficulty for various provincial police headquarters getting equipment from the Ministry of the Interior. Thus, both Western observers and police officers in a Sunni province like Anbar might view equipment shortages as the product of sectarian hostility by the Shia-dominated federal government, when much of the delay is really administrative.
Blame administration (you will usually be right to do so).
Posted by Ghost of a flea at February 9, 2008 08:24 AM
