The creation of the Iraq Study Group reflects the vain hope that well meaning senior former public officials can have new ideas that redeem incompetent execution and insufficient resources..
Eliot Cohen
WSJ Thursday 12/7/06 page A 18
WE do not know if the situation in Iraq can be turned around.
Lee Hamilton, co chair Iraq Study GroupI
It is not my intention to get political on the topic of Iraq. However, war, like business, is a human endeavor. Strategy, tactics, surprise, no wonder The Art of War has become popular with both politicians and business folk.
I heartily recommend the first three paragraphs of Prof. Cohen's column to you. It is the sort of thing that I think historians will point to when, the US involvement has ended and whatever chaos befalls Iraq has happened.
Cohen recommends a behind the scenes evaluation right down to visiting with sergeants and lieutenants, traveling in convoys at personal risk, interviewing Iraqis, and then a report to the President in a no opinion barred result. What we got, he notes, is quite different. This war may well define your generation as the Viet Nam war did mine.
Yet they are far different. North Viet Nam never invaded or attacked the USA, terrorists did indeed attack the USA on 9/11 and at Pearl Harbor, note Mr. Cohen's column appears on Pearl Harbor Day.
Clearly the Study Group has given up on Victory, indeed the word does not appear in the report. But consider our response in WW II. We have some 135,000 troops in Iraq. Be the end of WWII we had some seven million men and women in the armed forces. We had enough vehicles for each and every one of them to ride to battle with seats left over for a couple of million. Our commitment on Iwo Jima (see previous post) and Okinawa and with the A bomb saw that to an end. I will leave it up to you to make parallel conclusions.
Now, consider the article on page 1 of the Dec 9, 2006 WSJ. The President of Toyota is not satisfied with its cost structure. A graph indicates just how well the Americans have caught up in hours to manufacture a car. Yet the President of Toyota wants more common components to further cut costs and stay competitive. Meanwhile Ford has mortgaged all its plants refusing to mortgage Mazda. One article says this gives Ford more time and room. If so this will be the first time in history someone awash in debt had more rather than fewer options.
My point is, if the Iraq Study Group were looking at Ford, would they give up their also? You be the judge. I think I will save the Toyota column as required reading as we begin the next cost course.It's all there, everything Dr. Deming discussed in TQM, and it is not going away.
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