LESSONS ENCOUNTERED

Lamb with Franco
with checkered pasts or who were judged by U.S. leaders or intelligence to be
marginal players, and it ran counter to the policy of transferring responsibility
for security to Iraqi military forces as fast as possible, which was based on the
assumption that the mere presence of U.S. forces was an irritant to be minimized
as a matter of priority. 144 For all these reasons, the tactical successes of
Marine and Army field commanders in late 2004 and 2005 failed to prompt a
rapid reassessment of policy and strategy assumptions.
If mission command is going to take root and become a useful element
of U.S. military culture, we need to consider the broader organizational implications
of the concept. We need to better understand why some officers
are inclined to innovate and learn from others; what it would take to make
their examples more common if not the norm; and especially how to assess
and replicate more rapidly successful innovation from the bottom up when it
challenges existing senior leader assumptions.
It also needs to be acknowledged that innovation can backfire, especially
where the commander’s intent is not clear. Ambassador Bremer secured
wide discretionary authority from the President without clear guidance on the
purpose of occupying Iraq. His most controversial decisions—handling expatriate
Iraqi leaders, disbanding (or not reconstituting) the Iraqi army, and
de-Ba’athification—were so contentious because it was not clear whether they
were consistent with Presidential intent. 145 Indeed, some argue Bremer was
chosen because he was a take-charge kind of person who could operate without
guidance: “In Bremer, the administration saw a hands-on and assertive
administrator: a veritable proconsul who would grab hold of the turmoil that
was Iraq and get the Bush administration’s program there back on track.” 146
Some historical accounts lionize special envoys, “czars,” and other national
security officials for working around the limitations of the current system
to generate good outcomes. 147 Recent studies of the national security system,
however, warn that policy entrepreneurs constitute a “roll of the dice.” They
often have limited access to all available resources, rely upon questionable legal
authorities, pursue policies based on faulty but unchallenged assumptions,
and make poor use of subject matter experts and other institutional expertise.
148 Considered in the context of broader system attributes, turning over
decisionmaking to an assertive, high-profile special envoy is more akin to
mission roulette than mission command. Policy entrepreneurs such as Am-
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