The Opinionated Bastard

Even though I think Obama is a lot better then Kerry, his position on the war really bothers me.

In a nutshell, Obama thinks that we never should have gone into Iraq; therefore we should pull out as soon as possible.

Fair enough. Despite the fact that Iraq had stockpiled 500 tons of Uranium, and that even Hans Blix found some weird shit in Iraq, I think even President Bush wishes he'd done things differently. Even if he still decided that we needed to go into Iraq, there are plenty of things we should have done differently.

But there's no Presidential Time Machine in the basement of the White House. If Obama is elected, he's going to have to deal with things as they are, not how he'd like them to be.

Obama is a lawyer. Lawyers seem to believe that the way to get things done is to talk about doing things. As near as I can tell, he has never had any real project management responsibilities except perhaps his experience as a community organizer. Even then, at most, he managed 14 people and its not clear that he managed any major projects during that period.

So he doesn't get something that I, as a middle manager, know instinctively. Schedules Slip.

Why 16 months? Why not 17? 18? 15?. I've tried to figure out where that number comes from and the best I've gotten is that Obama talked to one of his military advisers who said:

Well, if everything goes according to plan, we could be out in 16 months.

Let me say that again with the appropriate emphasis.

Well, if everything goes according to plan, we could be out in 16 months.

The problem with that statement is that nothing ever goes according to plan, especially in a friggin' war. If one of these $2.8 million Stryker's breaks down on the way out of Iraq, does that become 16 months and 1 day? Or will Obama just leave them there to rot? I have to say that if he does that, I'd like a refund on my income taxes paid over my entire life, because if the government is going to waste my money like that, fuck 'em.

Ok, so let's say that if a Stryker breaks down, that we delay 1 day.

Now we're at 24 months, realistically. Because never, in the history of the world, has anything ever gone according to plan. Trucks are going to break down, tires are going to go flat, the list of little things that won't go according to plan goes on and on. You have to make things not going according to plan, part of the plan. Think that's a paradox? Well, welcome to project management.

Even worse, I can tell you from my project management experience that when I say 24 months, that's only if you realize that the schedule will slip. If you're deluded enough to think that God and the Universe actually thinks that by saying 16 over and over and over again, that somehow, magically you'll hit your original schedule date, it will take 32 months.

That's right, if you hold to a schedule beyond all semblance of reason, things take even longer. Its only if you're lucky that it will take twice as long. That's the second paradox of project management.

Back when I was a consultant, a customer hired me to fix a problem that had been plaguing them for a year. I fixed it in a month. When they asked me how I was able to accomplish this "miracle". I told them:

You've been trying to do 1 month of work in 2 weeks. Your team is perfectly capable, but they've been trying to patch around the problem instead of fixing it. When I signed on, I told you it would take a month, and you didn't like it, but after a year of pain you said ok. So I went and fixed it, and it took a month.

The customer admitted that their own team had told them it would take a month to fix it a year prior, but they told them "that's too long, you have to do it in 2 weeks". So they spent a year being "2 weeks away".

If we try to pull out of Iraq in 16 months when we realistically need 17, 18 or 24 months, we'll be there longer then we would if we set a realistic deadline.

Of course, this isn't a project its a war, which means if we aren't realistic, we might have a third Iraq war. Or we might be there forever.

The thing that bothers me the most about Obama is that he doesn't realize what he doesn't know, and he definitely doesn't realize what his advisors don't know. Someone obviously pulled this 16 month number out of their ass, and Obama has continually avoided any attempt to learn better. Additionally, his campaign is so afraid of any question that's off the reservation that they keep him sequestered. Soldiers? Can't talk to them. Foreign Media? We'll provide flyers in German, but no foreign media to ask questions. Does it seem weird to anyone else that his own campaign doesn't trust Obama to talk?

Meanwhile, he stubbornly sticks to this "I was right in 2002".

A stopped clock is right twice/day. Him claiming he was right as a Illinois State Senator doesn't impress me. What might impress me is if he explained how he reached that decision. We don't give Top Secret briefings to state senators. What information did he use to base his decision on? Whatever was published in the Chicago Tribune? His Psychic Powers? Did he read Hans Blix's report? Scary stuff in there. Did he read the Duelfer report? Scary stuff in there as well.

I've read everything I could get my hands on before and after we went into Iraq and I have to say, I'm glad I wasn't President, because it was a tough call. The media likes to make it sound black and white, but it's not that simple. Saddam was both stupid and evil. There are plenty of stupid world leaders, and plenty of evil world leaders, but stupid and evil was a deadly combination.

(If you want to argue with me about this issue, I have one word: Camelpox. If you don't know what that means, you don't know enough to argue with me about this.)

But I don't get the sense that Obama has done anything beyond read the newspaper about Iraq. Everything I've heard Obama say about Iraq seems less informed than me. I'm just a concerned citizen trying to understand a difficult issue, not a full time politician. Obama should be more informed than me about this issue, not less.

Now that Obama is the Democratic nominee, he can get Top-Secret briefings from the government. He can get other briefings in his job as a Senator. Has he done so? No.

In essence, Obama seems to be relying not on the facts on the ground, or the information he has access to if he just asks. Obama seems to have used his psychic powers 6 years ago to make his decision on Iraq, and he's surrounded himself with advisors who agree with him. He's studiously avoided talking to anyone who might tell him otherwise.

Eisenhower famously told Kennedy that only the difficult problems would end up on his desk. Easy problems get solved long before they reach the desk of the President. As President, Obama will have to make decisions not based on what his psychic powers told him 6 years ago, but on the reality today.

I hope he comes to realize this.

Meanwhile, if Obama isn't using his top secret briefing could I have it? Because I would love to truly, truly understand the last 7 years of history.