West Incident Reveals Senior Leadership Failure

[thedrifter]

11-13-2003

West Incident Reveals Senior Leadership Failure



By Raymond Perry



Lt. Col. Alan B. West?s motivational use of the apparent threat of mortal injury to an Iraqi policeman to extract information about a possible terrorist strike has created a situation on the ground in Iraq that has spun out of control. Is there a commanding officer alive today that would not feel in his gut the strongest desire to do just as he did?



But as a nation we cannot allow the beginnings of the death spiral of conduct by our troops that it presages.



In August, West sought to forestall an ambush of his men by discharging his pistol into a bore clear chamber to motivate an Iraqi policeman suspected of knowing about the planned ambush. This act provided the motivation for this man to tell what he knew and it did indeed forestall the ambush. However, West was fired for this act and is now the subject of a criminal inquiry under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.



As a nation, we seek to advance the freedom of others throughout the world. We have done this in fits and starts. Not all of our history is the goodness and light of a Johnny Appleseed-like spreading of democracy. But on the whole, by comparison, we haven?t done too badly for our 227 years.



It is coming to light that his actions were not unlike that of the Army?s trained interrogators. Two of these trained interrogators appear to have physically struck this policeman. Have they been charged?



Of far greater concern is the lack of reaction by the Army and U.S. Central Command leadership to this act. If news media reports are accurate, there is no leadership present in the U.S. Central Command. It is as if the TV show ?JAG? has come to Iraq.



What must be done?



In looking back in history at similar situations in military affairs, the use of force to extract seemingly important information ?to save lives,? in fact can prompt a death spiral that culminates in loss of the very goal that was to be saved. Further, it emplaces a modus operandi that so cheapens life that later generations see murder as little more than a management tool. We cannot accept this.



The French in Algeria are the recent, best example of this phenomenon. In seeking to overcome the French forces, the Algerian freedom movement resorted to their own brand of terror. To this day in Algeria there is an underlying streak of barbarism in the name of a ?just cause? that takes the lives of many innocents.



The movie ?The Battle of Algiers?, by Gillo Pontecorvo, which chronicled the French experience in Algeria, was recently shown in the Pentagon to make the point that winning the war and losing the peace was a real possibility. In it a captive F.L.N. leader pointed out to his French keepers that French atrocities were atrocities nonetheless. The weapon or delivery method was irrelevant.



It is the job of the generals to transcend history. The motivations of the line soldiers are clear and at a very real, gut level seem justified. I would be hard pressed to do differently than what West is accused of having done. But as a nation, we stand for something far better.



If the reporting of the lack of response of the generals is accurate, the top uniformed leaders of the U.S. military have surrendered their leadership on this crucial issue. In allowing their JAG officers to take the heat they are hiding behind the skirts of the JAG corps.



It is clear that the performance of West did not meet expectations for a commanding officer to control a tough situation. The response of the generals should have been to relieve him for ?loss of confidence,? a severe, non-judicial, and un-recoverable penalty for any career officer.



Following this, the Army or Central Command leadership should have transmitted a personal message to all unit commanders proscribing such actions by leaders, briefly outlining acceptable performance, communicating the importance of proper behavior to the presence of the U.S. forces in Iraq, and couched such that its message was clear: ?Don?t be next.?



The importance of such forthright leadership is of vast importance to both unit commanders and the line soldiers. The absence of it allows the military legal profession, unqualified in the day-to-day husbanding of ones people in a region where death lingers around every corner, to set the standard by leveling charges.



By allowing the legal profession to define the behavior, the generals have relieved themselves of the possible embarrassment of ?getting this one wrong.? When a general allows a JAG to do the speaking, he is insulating himself from the outcome.



It also allows the general officer the luxury of not having to plan ahead, define and communicate to his people his personal expectations. It is the responsibility of leadership to look into the future, as difficult as that may be, frame expectations of how forces should handle some truly tough situations, and clearly communicate these expectations to those forces.



In my recent article ?A Failure of Our Ethos? ( DefenseWatch, July 10, 2003) I noted that it is not a difficult progression to doing great evil within a legitimizing framework. If ever there was a legitimizing framework, it is the desire of a CO to save the lives of his troops.



The only people that are capable of forestalling such a descent are the generals on the scene. They must be willing to take the heat for this one.



This is of such significance to the nation that the Commander, U.S. Central Command, might well have taken over handling this case from the Commander of U.S. Forces in Iraq. But these two general officers seem to have let their JAGs do it.



That is a clear failure of leadership.



Lt. Raymond Perry USN (Ret.) is a DefenseWatch Contributing Editor. He can be reached at cos1stlt@yahoo.com.


http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/c....4145682854082


Sempers,

Roger