LESSONS ENCOUNTERED

Lamb with Franco
Yet when failure loomed, the President, Rice, and Hadley developed a
keen appreciation for the value of detailed oversight even though it meant being
accused of micromanagement. Rice saw the White House needed “better
connectivity” with Bremer and his staff in Baghdad, and to get it she created
the Iraq Stabilization Group headed by a “black belt in bureaucratic politics.”
This led to intense friction with the Secretary of Defense, the accusation that
she was interfering in the chain of command, and also a short-lived reprimand
from the President. President Bush objected to Dr. Rice summoning Ambassador
Bremer to Washington to explain next steps in Iraq because he knew
there would be fallout from bypassing Secretary Rumsfeld, who was sensitive
to “what he thought to be White House interference in the chain of command.”
Rice told the President she could cancel Bremer’s trip, but added, “Don’t be
surprised when the United States has a new plan for Iraq’s political transition
that you haven’t seen.” The President relented and asked when Bremer
was coming. 163 Rice remained sensitive to the charge of micromanagement,
however, admitting she was “far deeper into operational matters than [she
thought] wise.” Yet she ended up being glad she intervened. 164
Similarly, Hadley remains convinced that the Tower Commission’s injunction
against NSC staff getting involved in operations remains “absolutely
true.” At the same time, he admits that the Iraq strategy could not succeed
“if we gave it to the bureaucracy to be executed in the ordinary course [of
business] because it would not get done in time.” So he concludes, “the one
thing we’ve learned since the Tower Commission report” is that “the NSC has
the responsibility to ensure that policy decisions . . . are actually implemented
and executed effectively.” Hadley considers effective oversight of decision
implementation (that is, operations) a “new frontier for the interagency process,”
and he experimented with alternative means of providing it. First he
created an Afghan Operations Group—an interagency team with offices in
the Department of State—and later he appointed a czar (Lieutenant General
Douglas Lute, USA) with “a direct line to the President.” 165 Insider accounts of
decisionmaking indicate he later took a much more hands-on personal role in
engineering the White House intervention that led to the Surge. 166
There will always be an “eye of the beholder” dimension to distinguishing
helpful oversight from unhelpful micromanagement. However, several insights
may assist future leaders on this difficult topic. First, experienced leaders make
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