Flash: Secretary Baker To Perform Brain Surgery

The Center for Security Policy today expressed incredulity at published reports that Secretary of State James Baker would, in the course of a trip next week to Saudi Arabia "try to untangle the complex issue of command of the multinational armies encamped there whose effectiveness in any war could be hobbled by differences in language, weapons and tactics."

This description of Baker’s mission was relayed in an article which appeared in this morning’s Washington Post entitled, "Baker to Tackle Command Authority." The article goes on to describe how this problem has become an increasingly vexing one as talk of military action escalates and the numbers of non-U.S. troops in the multinational force increase.

The Center believes that, on the face of it, the Secretary of State seems woefully ill-equipped for such a task. The complexities of modern warfare — considerable under the best of circumstances and infinitely exacerbated by the present coalition approach — are not the sort of thing for which the Secretary has demonstrated expertise. Neither does it appear that his unquestioned aptitude for political deal-making is what will be required to produce clear, reliable and efficient chains of command among the various military organizations and sovereign nations involved.

In fact, as documented in a separate report also in today’s Post under the headline, "Gulf Crisis Tests Baker as Diplomat, Politician," the Secretary of State’s shortsighted and utterly tactical approach to foreign policy issues has given rise to some of the more intractable aspects of the present command and control conundrum. For example, Mr. Baker’s decisions to place great importance on a Soviet partnership in the crisis, to incorporate Syrian personnel into the multinational force, and to suggest the prospect of a large permanent U.S. military presence in the region have all made it more difficult — not easier — to exercise military options.

Worse yet, it seems likely that Secretary Baker’s response to this difficult situation, like his response to most such problems, will be to take the path of least resistance. In this case, that probably means agreeing to the Soviet Union’s demands, and those of other nations, that the multinational force be placed under U.N. command and its authority to act subjected to the decisions of the Security Council’s Military Staff Committee. Such a step would surely have the effect of making the present policy paralysis in the Gulf a permanent state, with devastating implications for long-term U.S. interests in the region and a disturbing precedent for future military operations.

"It is ironic that a man whose own organization is infamous for its insular, ineffective and uncertain command and control arrangements would be charged with resolving the infinitely more complex and problematic arrangements involved in Operation Desert Shield," observed Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the Center’s director. "The United States cannot afford to continue having its foreign policies largely shaped by the short-run-oriented, wheeling-dealing approach, characteristic of James Baker. In particular such an approach has the potential of fatally compromising such options as are available to accomplish the task at hand — namely to use decisive military force against Saddam Hussein’s regime and power-projection capabilities."

Gaffney added, "If ‘war is too important to be left to the generals,’ organizing for the conduct of war is too important to be left to political operatives, or for that matter, the Department of State. Next, we will be told that the Secretary of State is going to be performing brain surgery or correcting the flaws in the Hubble Space Telescope."

The Center for Security Policy strongly urges that the United States maintain full authority and latitude to initiate and prosecute combat operations in the Persian Gulf. Under no foreseeable circumstances should U.S. forces be subordinated to Saudi or U.N. commands; neither should the Soviet Union, the Syrians or other "allied" nations be permitted a de facto or de jure veto over the timing and/or the objectives of an American military action in response to Iraqi aggression.