Forward Observer: A Chance to Make History

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., as the new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, you have a great opportunity to make history as well as continue your fervent study of it. The country needs a chairman who will throw the kind of light on the past, present and future of the Iraq war that Senate Foreign Relations Chairman J. W. Fulbright, D-Ark., focused on the Vietnam War while it was still going on.

Your "Show Me" approach, together with your fairness and passion for truth, especially in all things military, makes you an ideal Diogenes at this dark time when the Joint Chiefs of Staff sound just like the go-along bureaucrats they became under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

As one who has dealt with and deployed with the American military for more than four decades now, I have never seen the institution better at the bottom or worse at the top. So my advice is to get below the top of the military in your hearings on where we are going and should go in Iraq.

And why not break out of the usual hothouse Washington committee hearings and fly your committee into Baghdad's Green Zone to conduct hearings in open, televised sessions? That way you could call in the nearby colonels, majors, captains, lieutenants and senior sergeants -- especially the Army sergeants major and Marine gunnies -- who are actually down in the sand wrestling with the bull every day.

You would not be breaking into their command duties for any unreasonable period of time, as would be the case if the officers had to fly to Washington. And why not ask Shia, Sunni and Kurdish military officers and cops their views while you're at it?

Sure, you have to let the generals testify. But you know you'll hear the usual, on-the-other-hand testimony -- the kind that caused Harry Truman to say, "I wish I could find a one-armed economist."

We don't seem to have any straight-shooting four star generals on active duty these days. Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, who had Iraq right from the start, is relegated to wincing in retirement as he watches what he predicted unfold. Your staff will have to find a way to prevent the generals from picking and rehearsing junior officers who testify before your committee.

The American people shouted out loud and clear in last Tuesday's election that they want someone to talk sense to them on Iraq. You could be that someone, Mr. Chairman-to-be, after conducting plain-speak hearings in Iraq.

Before your hearings begin, why not have your staff meet with counterparts on the House International Relations, Senate Armed Services and Senate Foreign Relations committees to block out areas of inquiry for each committee rather than overlap and compete for the "gets?" Lawyers do this in pre-trial hearings before a case goes to trial, saving everybody time and bluster.

Meanwhile, here are some of the questions that would enlighten us all if you could get them answered forthrightly by officers who know the ground truth:

• Is President Bush kidding himself by counting on the Iraqi military and police forces to stand up so we can stand down? No matter how well we train Iraqis at Fort Benning East and New York Police Academy East, will the graduates ever feel loyal to the weak central government or will they always take their orders from warlords or clerics in their home areas? As an adviser who deploys day by day with Iraqi soldiers and cops, Captain, what is your opinion? What would you do at this point in the insurgency if you were in charge? And how about you, Sergeant Major?
• What would happen in your area of operations, Colonel, if you pulled out your troops tomorrow morning? When could you safely do that, if ever?
• What vehicles, weapons and specialists would help you the most to pacify your area of operations, Colonel and Sergeant Major, if you could get them? Why don't you have them?
• If you were made the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq tomorrow, Colonel, what would you do differently? Remember, the intent of the Goldwater-Nichols Act was to underscore the obligation of military leaders like you to give frank opinions when asked them by Congress.
• Shia, Sunni and Kurdish military officers at the witness table, what should the United States military do to help pacify your country at this point? How soon should U.S. troops leave? What equipment are you counting on the American military leaving behind for you? Are you counting on our Air Force being on call long after the main body of our ground troops leave? Give us your master plan for peace in Iraq.