War on Iraq- Stillman free essay sample

â€Å"The Decision to go to war with Iraq† (Pfiffner, 2009) is an analysis of the factors that led G. W. Bush and his administration to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein and his government. Pfiffner provides a short historic background explaining the reasons this decision was made. According to his essay these reasons relate closely to the G. H. W. Bush administration that in the 1990s decided against invading Iraq and overthrowing Hussein. Public officers, who were assigned in critical positions during the G. W. Bush administration, such as Rumsfield, Wolfowitz and Perle, were pushing a war agenda convinced that Iraq posed a major threat to the United States, previously during the Clinton administration (Pfiffner, 2009). Undoubtedly, trying to analyze this decision is a very difficult task. Complicating this task are several factors, including the individuals and agencies involved in the decision, which now is seen as erroneous and a failure of public administration. We will write a custom essay sample on War on Iraq- Stillman or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page In the decision making the president, appointed officials and organizations such as the CIA were involved. The 9/11 terrorists attacks played a major role in the president’s decision to go to war with Iraq. It seems that after that incident G. W. Bush changed his mind and started believing that war was inevitable (Pfiffner, 2009). A good starting point would be to analyze the individuals involved that influenced the President and his decisions. There is no doubt that the appointed officials were given specific positions based on merit. They were experts in their discipline, had skill and experience. It is very interesting to observe that most of them fit perfectly the ideal public official based on the New Deal Era Theory. Like in the 1930s these officials were experienced, industry trained and had a very good university education (Morgan et al. , 2008). The scientific and technical expertise, which is the base of the merit system, was present. This notion was evident and it did create potentially good appointed public servants. Whether appointed on patronage or not in this case does not seem relevant. What does matter however, is the lack of administrative ethics and responsibility they exhibited. The New Deal model demanded neutral competency (Morgan et al. , 2008). That meant that public officials should perform their jobs based on a very strict set of standards and no other criteria or loyalties. In this case they did not identify their responsibilities and overstepped boundaries, which led to ethical violations. The two latter ones were the reasons for bad public administration. This lack of ethics and responsibility is clearly shown by the efforts that were made to politically influence agencies and their reports (such as the frequent trips the Vice President made to the CIA), manipulation of the reports of agencies and when this strategy failed, the creation of the Office of Special Plans by Rumsfield, which provided convenient information to justify the need of military intervention in Iraq (Pfiffner, 2009). Another issue compared when this case is seen under the prism of the New Deal model is that the elected or appointed officials did not display trust and faith in the expertise and technical knowledge of the CIA. CIA, and the United Nations independent inspectors had not found Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq (Pfiffner, 2009). Under the New Deal this would be sufficient since the official, meaning the Bush administration, should show trust in the systems and processes brought by these agencies, as result of their expertise (Morgan et al. , 2008). That should have been the appropriate character shown and no efforts to politically influence other public officers should have been made. It is interesting that the President’s inner and outer cabinet showed loyalty, not to a specific individual but to intrinsic needs and ideas. They believed war was necessary and eventually convinced the President of that. But G. W. Bush was not without blame. After he decided to go to war with Iraq, he postponed the announcement of his decision for four months, and he proceeded to attack support in the United Nation and the American public, based on incorrect information (Pfiffner, 2009). Another issue was that the Democratic Party supported the decision to go to war not based on the evidence but because of fear that a negative vote would be used against them in the upcoming elections. The Democratic Party as elected officials failed to exercise its duties and responsibilities. Under the same scope so did CIA. Both of them refused to act on the responsibility based on the Formal-Legal theory, which requires public administrators who see a problem to act upon it, and find ways to solve it by restoring the official who overstepped boundaries and conducted ethical violations (Morgan et al. 2008). Additionally, another responsibility, the integrity of the policy formulation process was truncated. Burke (2008) stated that administrators should not promote their own policies. It is exactly what occurred in this decision making process. Both the CIA and the Democratic Party kept a passive attitude and let the lack of ethics and responsibility prevail. The way the Bush admini stration handled this agenda raises the issue of â€Å"The King George Problem†. When people vote in a democracy, they essentially trust specific individuals with their own decision-making powers. The problem is that in that way, and following the Federalist government model, they rely heavily on elected public officials and their appointees (Morgan et al. , 2008). However, it is the same government model that considers necessary due notice of serious decisions and transparency in the methods that these decisions were made, as well as procedural fairness in the way information was gathered and assessed (Morgan et al. 2008). Any action deviating from these requirements would give a government too much power and qualify it as tyrannical, leading to â€Å"The King George Problem†. One might add that the actions of the Bush administration should not have occurred to virtue alone. Public officer are required to act with integrity, character and competence (Morgan et al. , 2008). Although one might argue that competence, in the essence of merit, skills and exper tise was present, it is obvious that integrity was not. Public officers in the United States are stewards of the Constitution, which expresses the will of the People (Morgan et al. , 2008). This time the People supported their government’s decision and did not question or scrutinized the evidence provided. The support came from an uneducated audience, which did not have clear insight of the situation. The alert, inquisitive, detective public thought that would have exposed the government’s abuses (Wilson, 1887) was inactive misled by a government that manipulated evidence. It seems that the decision to go to war with Iraq was a hasty decision. As political appointees and knowing that their service would be short-termed, they acted as â€Å"birds of passage† as Heclo called them, adapting in the situation at hand and acting quickly in order to achieve something (Stillman, 2010). That would partially explain the rush behind the Bush administration intervening in Iraq. Since there are many stakeholders it is hard to hypothesize and through that determine how things could or would have been different. The fact is that several entities failed to do their duty (passive stance by the CIA and Democratic Party, overstepping boundaries, political pressure and ethical violations by elected and appointed officials) and dragged the United States in a war that until today seems very hard to disengage. References Morgan Douglas F. , Green, Richard, Shinn, Craig W. , and Robinson, Kent S. 2008: Foundations of Public Service, Armonk, NY, M. E. Sharpe Stillman, Richard J. 2010. Public Administration: Concepts and Cases, 9th Ed. , Boston Wadsworth.