Response to Di Rita’s Criticism of Shinseki

The following is my response (submitted as a comment on WP.com) to this Op-Ed in today’s Washington Post criticizing General Eric Shinseki and his supporters for viewing his actions favorably:

I am confused by Di Rita’s essay.  I must have misunderstood.

As I understand it, the argument on behalf of Shinseki’s wisdom and courage is as follows:  Shinseki had a different estimate of the troop requirements than the administration did.  The administration discouraged the communication of views, such as troop estimates, that differed from its own.  Shinseki was one of a very small number of participants in the decision-making process who voiced his difference of opinion.  The wisdom of this opinion was ignored and Shinseki was punished in some way for expressing it.  Thus, Shinseki took a personal risk on behalf of the country to advocate an plan from which the country would have benefited.  Therefore, this action is deserving of our respect, and the actions of those who sought to discourage him are worthy of shame.

I do not see what aspect of this argument is refuted by Di Rita.  In fact, he seems to be supporting it.  Most tellingly, he offers that “At no time, even as a surge was being considered, did anyone recommend doubling U.S. forces to the ’several hundred thousand’ troops Shinseki said might be needed.”  Right.  That is the whole point.  No one, other than Shinseki, recommended this course of action, even though it might have had serious advantages.

Why wasn’t it recommended?  There are two competing hypotheses:
1) because it was unrealistic — it didn’t really merit serious consideration
2) because it was just the kind of idea that the administration sought to discourage.

We have at least three facts that support the conclusion that the answer is #2, not #1. Two of these are provided by Di Rita himself.  First, there is the basic fact (not provided by Di Rita) that the Iraq invasion has failed in comparison to the standards offered by the administration prior to the invasion.  This means that either the administration knew things would be worse than they said, meaning they deliberately deceived the rest of us, or they sincerely mis-estimated the situation.  If the latter is true — their assessment of the situation was seriously flawed — then, necessarily, their assessment of alternative courses of action was also flawed.  Thus, Di Rita is in no position to claim that any strategy was not worthy of consideration on its merits — he and his colleagues clearly didn’t know what the merits were.  This is evidence against choosing #1.

Furthering this case is the fact that Di Rita, now, even with the benefit of hindsight, offers no critique of Shinseki’s argument.  He says nothing in this essay about why 300,000 troops would have been a mistake.  He merely appeals, again, to the fact that no one recommended it (other than Shinseki).  This defense is predicated on the belief that the process by which recommendations were brought forth and entertained was a sound one, yet it is precisely our doubt of this process which makes Shinseki’s testimony compelling.  Thus, it is precisely the situation where some other defense is called for, something that indicates that there was good reason, other than a flawed decision-making process, to ignore Shinseki.  The absence of any such defense in such a circumstance is at least some evidence that no such (credible) defense exists.

Finally, there is the tone and emphasis of Di Rita’s essay, which is to blame Shinseki for what he claims, initially, is a media phenomenon.  According to Di Rita, it is Shinseki’s fault that public opinion has turned against Rumsfeld.  I wonder, did Di Rita talk like this when he was working in the administration?  Because if he did, that sounds to me like exactly the kind of insinuation that would discourage people from stepping forward and voicing disagreement.

Di Rita’s argument matches closely to the logic we have observed the Bush administration use in many contexts: Since, before events occur, we know we are right, debate that exposes the weaknesses of our rationale is purely disruptive dissent and should be suppressed.  Then, after events occur, when it is clear we were wrong, we claim that we “couldn’t have known any better” because everyone agreed our rationale had no weaknesses, and so the fault lies with those who didn’t speak up.  In this case, the fault lies with the person who did speak up for not speaking up even more.