R. Bennett Furlow

I have just read the same book twice. Bob Woodward’s State of Denial and Colonel H.R. McMaster’s Dereliction of Duty are remarkably similar yet decades apart. Woodward’s book is the most recent and better known. It decribes an ineffective Defense Department headed by a Secretary who’s ego supercedes his judgment, and a weak uniformed leadership unwilling to take a stand and speak truth to power. It is all the more tragic because it is a lesson that should have already been learned.

Col. McMaster’s Ph.D. dissertation was published as Dereliction of Duty in 1997. It tells the story of the Defense Department during the Lyndon Johnson administration during the Vietnam war. The similarities between the two books are amazing.

Both Donald Rumsfeld and Robert McNamara took the job of Secretary of Defense with
the intent of reforming the military. Rumsfeld wanted a light, quick-moving army, one
that could be rapidly deployed to defeat an enemy. In an effort to eliminate waste,
both Rumsfeld and McNamara forced the Joint Staff to justify programs already in
existance including those clearly designed to help keep troops safe.

They both ignored the military advice of experienced generals. General Eric Shinseki said “something on the order of “several hundred thousand soldiers” would be necessary
to secure Iraq. Members of the Joint Chiefs under LBJ argued for overwhelming force to
be used in Vietnam.

Both felt the Joint Chiefs, and the Chairman in particular, should support the military
strategies and policies set forth by the civilian leadership. In other words, the Joint
Chiefs should be subservient to the President rather than give their honest military
advise as described in the National Security Act of 1947 and the Goldwater-Nichols
Act.

Both had Chairmen (Maxwell Taylor, Richard Myers and Peter Pace) that were/are empty suits, more eager to please the President rather than do what was right for the country or military for which they serve.

People have compared Iraq to Vietnam before, but the truely telling thing about these books is the comparison of the respective administrations. The similarities are not in the wars fought but in the personalities that chose to fight them. Two worthwhile reads.