Here is the White House’s “Lessons Learned” from hurricane Katrina, with one key part:

The National Response Plan’s Mission Assignment process proved to be far too bureaucratic to support the response to a catastrophe. Melvin Holden, Mayor-President of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, noted that, “requirements for paper work and form completions hindered immediate action and deployment of people and materials to assist in rescue and recovery efforts.”4 Far too often, the process required numerous time consuming approval signatures and data processing steps prior to any action, delaying the response. As a result, many agencies took action under their own independent authorities while also responding to mission assignments from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), creating further process confusion and potential duplication of efforts.

The same line of thought is now being applied to the Walter Reed scandal, as Bush said on March 30th:

The problems at Walter Reed were caused by bureaucratic and administrative failures. The system failed you, and it failed our troops. And we’re going to fix it.

With all these “bureaucratic” failures, you would think the White House, ran by a President who is part of the party of “smaller government” would remove all that fat that has proved so catastrophic to our nation. You sure as hell would think they would add another level of bureaucracy to something like the war on terror or Iraq. Or will they?

The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation.

At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position, the sources said, underscoring the administration’s difficulty in enlisting its top recruits to join the team after five years of warfare that have taxed the United States and its military.

“The very fundamental issue is, they don’t know where the hell they’re going,” said retired Marine Gen. John J. “Jack” Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting the job. Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq. “So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, ‘No, thanks,’ ” he said.

The White House has not publicly disclosed its interest in creating the position, hoping to find someone President Bush can anoint and announce for the post all at once. Officials said they are still considering options for how to reorganize the White House’s management of the two conflicts. If they cannot find a person suited for the sort of specially empowered office they envision, they said, they may have to retain the current structure.

So why would the White House be pursuing someone for this position if the “surge” is working so well? It is obvious they want someone to take the brunt of the blame from Bush, but would this person get the credit if the surge worked (yeah right)?

The Constitution of the United States says that:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

There is nothing in the constitution about “delegating” the position of commander in chief, something this move appears to be doing. It sounds more like Bush doesn’t want to do his job, and if that is the case then he should be removed from his job.

Kevin Drum also brings up some very valid points about this disclosure:

Count me skeptical. The fact that the White House is incapable of coordinating the war effort is indeed a real problem, but aside from the wee issues Sheehan mentioned — Bush doesn’t know what he’s doing and Cheney still has too much influence — ask yourself: is one more matrix manager really going to do any good? We already have Secretaries of State and Defense, we already have a military chain of command, and we already have an NSC that’s supposed to coordinate all this stuff. Does anyone truly think that a shiny new White House staffer with no budgetary authority, no bureaucratic support, and little in the way of institutional levers of control is going to be able to magically get everyone on the same page sometime in the next few months? It’s a suicide mission, and the fact that Bush apparently thinks that a bit of org chart shuffling will make a significant difference in Iraq is just one more sign of how deeply out of touch with reality he is.

Exactly. All we are going to do by adding another bureaucratic layer to an already mismanaged war is delay an outcome and lead to more soldiers suffering, losing their lives and more money down the drain. We have three top generals, who are considered very loyal Bush supporters, turning down this position. Even they know a suicide mission when they see one, and that is exactly what this is.

If we didn’t have a solid reason for pulling the funds for this war before, then we do now. We have a rogue commander in chief, who is unwilling to accept the failures of his way. This is proof of that. Our soldiers demand much more respect than that, as does the rest of this nation. The Democrats have the power to give it.