Iraq, 4 Years On

Posted by Seth Kramer on Monday, March 19th 2007 at 10:14pm



Today marks the beginning of the 5th year of the war in Iraq. The president marked this anniversary with another speech from the White House Library. The president brought us the good news that attacks are down 30% since the beginning of his new "surge" strategy. I am pleased to hear that attacks are down 30%, however they are up more than 200% from what they were just two years ago.

As I have said many times before. I don't know anything about the military. However, having worked in IT for a little over 5 years, as a result of my experience with seasoned Project Managers I have grown familiar with some cardinal rules of Project Management and I'd like to share some of the easier to understand aphorisms that would have been, and in some cases may still be helpful to the administration.

Engineers work in numbers, when you want to use an adjective, make it a number - Sloganeering has run rampant on both sides of the aisle in this war. Here's the key to winning the hearts and minds of the American people. Cold hard facts. Numbers, not feelings. No "cut and run" no "re-deployment" no "slow bleed" no "war of choice" give me figures. I'm capable of making my own decisions.

You can't boil the ocean. - There's a growing body of evidence that this war was initiated by a group of individuals who believed that somehow by toppling the Hussein government democracy would flourish throughout the Middle East. Problems are solved in bite-sized pieces. Take them apart, and fix a small bit. Rebuilding a country is not a small bit.

The sooner you begin coding, the later you finish, or measure twice, cut once - It's become clear that planning wasn't a big priority for the war. Or rather whatever plan existed was not robust enough to handle the actual situation.

Poor performers, must be drown in work. - If you aren't getting what you need out of a resource, assuming they're qualified, they are either bored or lazy. If they're bored, the extra work will satisfy them. If they're lazy, they'll eventually quit, or give you grounds to fire them. Looking at Mr. Maliki here.

Good managers admit mistakes: that's why you so rarely meet a good project manager - The Decider only seems to be in charge when the chips are up.

Fast - cheap - good: you can have 2 - Rumsfeld wanted to fight the war on the cheap (with few troops). He got it. The cost? Iraq has lasted almost 6 months longer than WWII.

You can't take three women and have a baby in 3 months. - Numbers don't fix every problem. Every troop going into Iraq wants that country to succeed. But until the Iraqi people want their own country to succeed, and believe it capable of doing so, no amount of troops will fix it. In other words, if you're having trouble making a silk purse out of a sow's ear, the solution isn't more tailors.

Of several possible interpretations of a communication, the least convenient is the correct one. - It seems at every possible outcome the administration, and those who enabled it, believed only the most rosy interpretation of the facts. We must plan for a worst-case scenario.

What you don't know WILL hurt you. - We never had, nor do we even have now, enough Arabic-speakers, cultural experts, etc. We had no serious knowledge of this part of the world, except that it's history is very violent, and unstable. This continues to plague us.

The bitterness of poor quality lasts long after the sweetness of making a date is forgotten. - Two words. "Mission Accomplished"

So what do we do now? Extending my Project Management metaphor if you have a project that's over-budget, late, and the milestones are not complete. You have a "Come to Jesus" meeting. It's time to see the customer (in this case, the American people) and you talk about where you're at, what you have to do, and why you're behind. In short, you admit your mistakes, bringing all the information you can to your customer. You don't spin it. Then, assuming the customer still trusts your ability to get the job done, bring in someone removed from the project, a disinterested third-party. They need to re-plan, and in some cases, the third-party may need to execute the plan.

So here we are, at the threshold of year five. With the plan of a disinterested third-party (Baker-Hamilton/Iraq Study Group) round-filed, going in a different direction. I wish I could be optimistic about this whole thing. But I think it will prove to be the biggest Foreign Policy Disaster since Vietnam.

I'm feeling tired
I'm spinning Bob Denver - Rocky Mountain High