Gentleman,

I'm a relatively young, federal civil servant with no combat experience, so I typically lay low and learn from the conversations that take place here rather than contribute. However, I think the wrong lessons are being drawn from the articles you've read and discussions to date.

The issue that needs to be addressed is that the interagency system is seriously broken. There needs to be serious reform before any administration will be able to count on the entire federal government working together in an effective manner. There are any number of different reforms and directives that have tried to solve this problem since 9/11 (and before for that matter). They just haven't worked. The system needs to be fixed. And until its fixed, future Administration's will continue to have the same issues.

Operating under the reality that the system is broke, but we cannot succeed without effective interagency cooperation, what are the options available? Obviously someone needs to figure out how to fix the system. But that is a longer term solution and will not take effect for years (Look at how long jointness under Goldwater-Nichols took). In the short term, there is only one effective answer that I'm aware of and that is what Hadley suggests. Have one person, with staff, entirely focused on making sure the interagency supports the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan 24/7...that's all they work on.

Several of you have said that Hadley should be focused on Iraq and Afghanistan. That is just unrealistic. There are numerous National Security issues that the National Security Advisor and his staff must pay attention to...Iran, North Korea, China, Sudan just to name a few. I personally think it would be extremely irresponsible for the National Security Advisor to focus all of his time on Iraq and Afghanistan at the expense of the many other issues/crisis facing the U.S..

In many ways, I give Hadley credit for giving up some of his turf on one of the most critical issues facing the nation to someone else and admitting it's just too much for him to handle. How often does that happen in Washington? Normally I'd go on a long diatribe about how we expect our leaders to be perfect and then criticize them when they admit mistakes or changes in policy/tactics based on lessons learned...but I've already written too much.

While I certainly don't have any answers to the problem, I do know a few things. First, many administrations have tried to address the lack of interagency cooperation over the years and all have been unsuccessful. Second, even after Bush and Hadley are long gone, National Security Advisors will continue to deal with poor interagency cooperation until the entire system is blown up and rebuilt.

Take care,
Brian