Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice orders a review of her own failed policies regarding military contractors after the recent Blackwater killings in Baghdad. Why does it take a massacre (or a Cat 5 hurricane) to change Bush administration policy?

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Why is it every time the Bush administration gets caught with its collective pants down they immediately suggest an internal review? Instead of allowing objective, outside officials to come in and investigate, the answer is invariably, "we'll take care of it ourselves." It's like they are saying, "yes, we screwed this up royally. That's why the only solution is to let us do it again, only better this time around."

Case in point- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, after allowing Blackwater contracted cowboys to run roughshod and completely unsupervised throughout Iraq (leaving dead civilians left and right) is now proposing a solution; allow the State Department to thoroughly review and "fix" its own mess (emphasis and incredulity mine);

 

Rice accepted preliminary recommendations from an internal review board that call for Diplomatic Security agents to accompany every convoy, the installation of video cameras in security vehicles, audio recordings of radio traffic between the embassy and such convoys and improved coordination and communication between convoys and the U.S. military.

The moves are aimed at "putting in place more robust assets to make sure that the management, reporting and accountability function works as best as it possibly can," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

He did not say that previous Blackwater and U.S. practices were lacking in proper safeguards for accountability, but instead noted that under the new orders State will have better control of the operations of private contractors, including Blackwater. The company is the largest of three private security firms that guard U.S. diplomats in Iraq.

 

The problems are always approached as if nobody could have foreseen the danger. As the Decider famously said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

I have no government experience whatsoever. I served in the Air Force for five and a half years, and even though I worked with plenty of Special Forces guys I really have no experience in combat at all. Nevertheless, untrained and inexperienced as I am, if someone had asked me if it was a good idea to have former special ops guys to run around Baghdad, completely unaccountable and free to fire at will on anyone or anything around, I know what my answer would have been. "Are you crazy, or just plain dumb? HELL no, no way."

It would have been obvious to anyone not to do such a thing. It's simple common sense!

How can it be that in a massive government the size of ours not one person was there to offer the chain of command better advice, or exhibit some form of common sense themselves?

Authors Website: http://mike-kuykendall.blogspot.com/

Authors Bio:
Mike Kuykendall is a progressive, patriotic veteran of the U.S. Air Force, fighting hard to save our democracy.