For almost four years, the military has been carrying virtually the entire burden of all that must happen to advance our mission in Iraq – from setting up courts and designing banking systems to creating agricultural projects and building infrastructure. The failure of other departments and agencies, whether from a lack of will or ability, to step up to the challenges in their areas of expertise is the cause of a seething resentment at the Pentagon and within the ranks. A young lieutenant offers the following parable about what the military has been called upon to do:

“So a man is in a horrible car accident. He is wheeled in to the OR, and the most elite, prestigious surgeon in the world goes to work. He operates, without rest, for 24 hours straight. All the man’s organs are put back where they belong and the internal injuries are fixed. The surgeon collapses, exhausted, and calls for the suture doctor to come in and close the wounds. The problem is, the suture doctor is afraid of blood. He insists he won’t come in and sew the guy up until the bleeding has stopped. The surgeon yells that the bleeding won’t stop until the sutures are in, and he isn’t trained to do it, isn’t allowed to do it, and the suture doctor has the keys to the suture cabinet with all the supplies. Meanwhile, the man is dying on the table. Too bad, says the suture doctor, this isn’t what I went to med school for, I made it clear when I came to work in this hospital that I don’t like blood and only work when there isn’t any danger that the patient will die. So now, the hospital is trying to train the exhausted surgeon, who hasn’t slept in 36 hours, how to do sutures with different equipment, since the suture doctor doesn’t like people touching the stuff in his cabinet. Welcome to Iraq….”

Last night, Newt Gingrich was complaining about the failure [of the Bush Administration] to demand action and results from recalcitrant/incompetent government departments OTHER THAN THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT. He noted that Washington getting its act together is as important as the Maliki government’s performance. Being Newt, he had a few suggestions:

“1.Place General Petraeus in charge of the Iraq campaign and establish that the Ambassador is operating in support of the military commander.
2. Since General Petraeus will now have responsibility for victory in Iraq all elements of achieving victory are within his purview and he should report daily to the White House on anything significant which is not working or is needed
3. Create a deputy chief of staff to the President and appoint a retired four star general or admiral to manage Iraq implementation for the Commander in Chief on a daily basis.
4. Establish that the second briefing (after the daily intelligence brief) the President will get every day is from his deputy chief of staff for Iraq implementation.
5. Establish a War Cabinet which will meet once a week to review metrics of implementation and resolve failures and enforce decisions. The President should chair the War Cabinet personally and his deputy chief of staff for Iraq implementation should prepare the agenda for the weekly review and meeting.”