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04/26/2007: "This Is What Happens When You Don't Have A Plan"

Last night, the US House of Representatives passed a war funding bill that includes a provision requiring the start of troop pullout from Iraq beginning in October. By the time you read this, the Senate will have also passed the bill, setting the stage for the promised presidential veto. Next comes the finger pointing and name calling, accompanied by the countdown to when the troops run out of money.

I don't know much about the art of war, but I know a lot about project management. If there's one thing that is painfully clear from watching our government – both sides of the aisle – bungle this war, it's this: no one has anything that resembles a plan for this war. Unfortunately, that reminds me of a favorite business adage: fail to plan, and you plan to fail.

It doesn't matter if you're developing software, building a house, or fighting a war – there are certain things that you need. You need a budget, you need a schedule and you need a plan. Fail to develop any of these before you start, and you risk project failure.

We can argue about why we're in Iraq, but at this point it's meaningless – we're there. I'll leave it to the historians to dissect the causes – the focus not needs to be on how to achieve the best outcome in the least amount of time with the smallest cost, both man and materiel. And that's where the plan would come in handy.

I understand that this is war, and war isn't something that sticks well to a schedule. Fine. But that's no excuse for establishing milestones for success – certain accomplishments that would represent significant outcomes that point towards eventual victory. Although he handled it poorly in retrospect, President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech represented a significant success milestone – the toppling of the dictator and the defeat of the organized military. But because there was no communication of the plan to the American people, they mistakenly assumed that this represented victory. No sane person would believe this, and certainly the administration understood that there would be tough days ahead. But because they did not have an established plan for victory, they could not celebrate this milestone for what it was – one step in a long path. The same is true for the elections in Iraq – a significant milestone, taken in the context of an overall plan. But that plan, assuming it existed, was never made public.

Now we have the Congress demanding a timetable for pullout. No one can possibly believe that this could lead to anything but defeat. It may well be that the Democrats believe, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has stated publicly, that the war is lost and they simply want us to cut our losses and lick our wounds. Or perhaps they hope that bringing the troops home arbitrarily will allow them to lay the loss of the war at the feet of the Republican administration. Whatever the motivation, the outcome will be the same – a clear loss for America and chaos in Iraq.

At the same time, the Administration cannot continue an open-ended war with no end in sight – and no plan for ending. They have made no attempt to define what would represent a victory in Iraq, nor to establish and publish milestones that could be achieved along the way. They seem to believe that "stay the course" is a plan – when they clearly don't know the course to follow.

So what happens now? Both sides understand that you can't play chicken with the troops, so a way will be found to fund the effort. Before the ink is dry on the presidential veto, a new bill will be passed - one that looks a lot like this one, but without the riders. After all, both sides made their political points, so there's no need to do any more ... for the moment.

One of the basic tenets of physics is that if you create a vacuum, matter will rush in to fill the void. The failure of this Administration to provide some kind of plan has created the vacuum, and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are rushing to fill it. Unless the President and his advisors recognize this and provide some kind of a rebuttal in the form of a plan – any plan - for ending the war within a reasonable timeframe, the American people will have no choice but to support the Congressional plan and hold the Administration accountable for their leadership failure.

Don't kid yourself - no matter what side you're on, if comes to that, we all lose ...