Has anyone seen our ‘war czar’?

July 19, 2007

An AP report this morning notes that the White House is continuing to lobby lawmakers on Iraq policy, in part by offering access to top officials responsible for implementing war policy.

The White House is pushing hard to buy time for its Iraq strategy, offering Congress unusual access to President Bush’s top military and diplomatic advisers.

About 200 lawmakers were invited to the Pentagon for a classified question-and-answer session on Thursday with [Ambassador Ryan] Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. The two men were to brief lawmakers via satellite from Baghdad.

Bush’s new war adviser, Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, also was to be in the room.

That’s a rather passive way of describing the war czar’s role, isn’t it? He “was to be in the room”?

It reminded me, though, of an email I got the other day from Carpetbagger regular Curmudgeon, who said, “[W]hatever happened to the War Czar? He was the one who was supposed to really get things back on track in Iraq but since his appointment he’s pretty much vanished from sight.”

Indeed, he has. I started digging around to see what we’ve seen of Gen. Lute since he was officially confirmed by the Senate a month ago. I was surprised by how little I found.

On July 8, Lute was mentioned in passing in a Bob Novak column. Two days later, a report in Congressional Quarterly noted that Lute called some senators about Bush’s policy during the recent debate, but we don’t know what he said or whom he spoke with.

And that’s it. Since taking over NSA Stephen Hadley’s responsibilities for Iraq and Afghanistan, Lute has not been interviewed on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, or PBS. He has not appeared on any national radio show. He has not been quoted in any newspapers.

Perhaps most importantly of all — maybe he’s media shy? — Lute has not been mentioned by Bush, Cheney, or Tony Snow, in any capacity, since he was confirmed by the Senate.

A lot of us assumed the war czar would be powerless, which helped explain why several sought-after generals turned down the job. No, no, the White House said, this is a big job with key responsibilities, which will make a big difference. As Hadley told reporters, Lute would be “up close to the president” to work “full time, 24/7” on implementing Bush’s policy.

To be fair, it’s only been a month. Maybe Lute needs more time to … I don’t know … get acclimated or something. Maybe he’s staying away from public view on purpose.

But I hope he emerges soon. If this keeps up, we may want to consider putting his face on milk-cartons.

They’l keep him in storage until he’s needed. Which is, when they need a scapegoat.

  • Excellent post. I’ve been wondering on and off what happened to him. Maybe he’s on Palfrey’s List and is getting ready to spend more time with his family.

  • I think I saw him doing stand-up on Letterman. Something about the only difference between Iraq and Iran is one letter…

  • I’ve wondered about him as well. The only conclusion I can draw is that if he had anything hat could be spun as good news, the regime would have pushed him in front of every available camera. There are only 2 reasonable explanations: He does nothing, or he has nothing. Either way, he’s not much of a Czar, is he?

  • He’s at his Summer Palace just outside of St. Petersburg. Apparently Lute isn’t good with metaphor.

  • We need a big collage of Bushies with the Where’s WarCzar? caption like Where’s Waldo?

    I think we keep a collection of Al Qaidduh Number 2’s to parade out and also a collection of American military Number 2’s to fire when “mistakes are made”.

  • “Being in the room” allows him to later testify that he was not involved in any conversations, like AGAG. They’re thinking ahead.

  • Maybe the War Czar won’t parrot the Bush line of BS because he realized after he got to see all the secret info that we’re totally screwed.

    Congress needs to ask him to sit down and tell us all how he thinks its going.

  • I think you’re wrong. Lute is THE MAN – he has all the power and is accountable to no one but the president. He is off working on the plan to attack Iran – under the radar, away from any agency or public scrutiny or anyone that might ask uncomfortable questions.

    I think we should be VERY worried about what this man is doing.

  • He’s being groomed for the coveted “future scapegoat” position once Petraeus is used up and discarded in September.

  • Wasn’t it Bush who said the war czar wouldn’t actually be needed until the wars got really complicated like when…you know…we attack Iran. Then he will be needed just to keep straight who were fighting and where. Maybe he’s spending all of his time preparing for that.

  • ‘As Hadley told reporters, Lute would be “up close to the president” to work “full time, 24/7″ on implementing Bush’s policy.’

    The problem is we see a “war czar” as someone who’s supposed to plan the war, or give advice on running the war, or have input on Iraq policy. This is not what Mr. Hadley said, he said that the war czar works “24/7” to implement Bush’s policy. He doesn’t make policy, he implements it. Since Bush doesn’t have a Majority Leader to kick around in Congress, he needs a point-man on the war who can scare Republicans (and possibly some Democrats) into siding with Bush. So that’s what Lute does, at least that’s what he seems to be doing from the scant reporting about his role.

  • …Adding, he needs someone full-time to manage the opinions of the military, too. They were getting kind of pesky, what with all of those generals opposing the surge…

  • by delaying his start, the admin gets another excuse to try and buy time. “I know it’s September, but Lute has only been on board 1 month. We need to give him more time.” All about running out the clock.

  • People were shocked when responsibility for Iraq was taken away from Steven Hadley. I suggest it was taken away simply to allow Hadley to concentrate on our next glorious achievement: Iran. The President needed a bureaucratic rat hole to throw Iraq in and proceeded to attached a name to it: Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute.

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