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War CzarThen the War Czar Came to the End
by J. Daniel Janzen
with inspiration from Joshua Ferris

We were bored and restless with the war. Decisions were made, progress reported, but nothing ever seemed to change. Most of us had theories about what had gone wrong, and why, but we kept them to ourselves for the most part. Now and then, someone who had left a while back would write a book or give a quote, but inside the bubble, collective denial was the order of the day.

No one was quite sure how the War Czar talk got started. Condi thought it was W's idea, though she would think that. Hadley was the one who stood most to benefit — who wouldn't want to create a position devoted to the worst two-thirds of his job? Although his reaction, when told that Gates had been overheard discussing the position with Feith, seemed genuinely surprised. Not to mention pleased.

Of course, coming up with the position was the easy part. The hard part was finding someone willing to step into it, so to speak. We all promised to ask around among our friends, do the degrees-of-separation thing to find good candidates, but few of us actually followed through. It was embarrassing enough having to face people with the shame of this catastrophe looming over us like the world's worst elevator fart. Admit that we were having a hard time finding a patsy to take the fall? Forget it.

Finally someone turned up with Douglas Lute, a lieutenant general from the Joint Staff. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and being a Harvard man was theoretically in his favor given the job description, but the fact that he was only a three-star pretty much said it all. The War Czar was a fully transparent entity notwithstanding his sturdy build, with neither independent authority to make decisions, nor the frontline credibility to question decisions made. His sole function was to offload accountability from the unaccountable. He didn't even rate a grand introduction side-by-side with the boss; just a press release limping mutely over the wire.

But we didn't complain. It wasn't as if a more credible candidate could have made much more of a difference. And having a War Czar around had benefits far beyond Hadley's squash game.

"Mr. President, it looks like the surge will be impossible to sustain without requiring thousands of service members to spend two consecutive Christmases overseas." "That's appalling! Take it up with the War Czar right away!"

"Hey, Catherine the Great — nice work on the muffins today! No carrot this time!"

"What? The Iraqi parliament just voted in favor of a timeline for US withdrawal? Lute-fish, you're on it."

"Hey, Doug E. Fresh, we got a paper jam here and we need a left-handed monkey wrench to fix it. How about run down to Cheney's office and ask to borrow theirs?"

Then something happened that was funny at first, then became kind of sad. He started acting as if he really did run the war. He'd get on the phone with Petraeus and Maliki and Mike McConnell and dole out action items — I expect this, I want to see that, don't even think about the other thing. We called it Wishing on a Czar, as in, "Lute was wishing on a Czar to me this morning about that two-month break the Iraqi parliament is about to take. Gave me a chance to finally get through my Gmail."

His gluttony for information was a real departure from the prevailing "same shit different day." First it was the constant reports he was commissioning. Then he put up all these maps in his office. One day, an intern made the rounds with the news, "He's bought pushpins." One by one and in twos, we dropped by his office on some pretext to admire his handiwork: car bombs in black, IEDs in yellow, assassinations and massacres like fields of red poppies. The Green Zone was shaded with green colored pencil — by his own hand? Who else would have done it for him? We pictured him cross-hatching intently on his desk after everyone else had left, listening to a little NPR or baseball. That's when it started seeming sad.

Gradually we stopped dropping by his office, even just to look at the map. He got left off birthday lunch distribution lists. The sight of his shoes under the stall door was enough to make a guy decide to hold it. After a while, no one could remember the last time they'd spoken with him, or even seen him from a distance. Condi thought she'd heard him whistling in the stairwell, but seemed less sure the more she thought about it. Comparing notes, we realized with increasing concern, or at least interest, that no one had seen, heard or received email from him for more than a week. We drew straws, then sent Addison to check in on him.

While we were waiting, we kicked around a few possibilities, trying to strike the balance of just freakish enough without being cruel to contemplate. Maybe he'd fallen under a huge pile of intelligence briefings, trapped like the Collyer brothers. Or maybe Addison would find him bathed in the light of a wall of monitors, floor-to-ceiling carnage checkered with talking heads and doomsday analysts. Or just catatonic in his chair, a single dry tear trail on one cheek.

Instead, he found nothing. "What do you mean, nothing?" we pressed him. "Gone without a trace. Not just him — the maps, his pen-and-pencil mug, all those books, the whole shebang." And not only that. All the nerve center stuff was gone, too — the teleconferencing rig that had never really worked, the Decision Room TV setup, the pinpoint halogen lighting. It was as if he'd never been there at all.

It was then that we realized just how screwed we were. But no one said anything.

E-mail J. Daniel Janzen at jdaniel at flakmag dot com.

ALSO BY …

Also by J. Daniel Janzen:
Meet the Snowman
Camping with the Kids
Harriet Miers's Original Intent
Second Chance
Aesop in Mesopotamia
Ground Zero
Julia Child
Loving Big Brother
Whitey on Mars
Euchre
Johnny Cash
Thanksgiving in Death Valley
More by J. Daniel Janzen ›

 
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