Honest Broker?: The National Security Advisor and Presidential Decision Making

CHAPTER 6. The Costs of Failed Brokerage: Rice as NSC Advisor

CHAPTER฀6 the฀Costs฀of฀failed฀Brokerage Rice as NSC Advisor A nalysis of the broker role in the George W. Bush presidency is important for a number of reasons. First, the rhetoric, if not at times the practice, of serving as an honest broker was, at least initially, embraced by Condoleezza Rice when she took over as NSC advisor. The broker role was also in George W. Bush’s mind when he picked Rice for the post in December 2000; she was, in his words, “both a good manager and an honest broker of ideas.”1 Yet as we shall see, Rice’s activities as a broker varied enormously during her tenure in that position. At some decision points the degree of brokerage was high. At others, it was low or absent. Second, Rice’s role as NSC advisor went considerably beyond simple brokerage . Like most of her recent predecessors, Rice took on additional duties, especially in serving as a private counselor to the president and as public spokesperson. These additional tasks are often seen as weakening brokerage. Analysis of Rice’s activities thus offers an important test of whether and how much the NSC advisor’s role can be expanded beyond brokerage. Third, brokerage seems especially to have been needed in the deliberations of this presidency. George W. Bush, unlike his father, had little foreign policy expertise or experience. Finally, this administration faced a string of difficult and at times unique national security issues: the response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and then the difficulties surrounding Iraq’s postwar pacification and reconstruction.2 Decisions made were highly consequential but, as we shall see, sometimes fraught with error. The฀Costs฀of฀Failed฀Brokerage฀ |฀฀฀239 I.฀The฀George฀W.฀Bush฀National฀Security฀Process Like Carter and Clinton, Bush came to the presidency with little background in foreign affairs, this despite the strengths in that area his own father brought to his presidency. But unlike Carter or Clinton, Bush was no micromanager, bent on immersing himself in policy detail. September 11 changed that to some extent, and his presidency was faced with the most difficult of national security issues, to which he would most certainly respond. Yet, both before and after September 11, Bush was a decision maker prone to delegate. As a result, he was highly “process dependent.” Like Reagan, much would depend on the advice given him and the quality of the deliberative process that produced it. And like Reagan again, it was a context that especially called for an honest broker. An effective process was especially needed given Bush’s proclivities as a decision maker. Delegation especially carried risks given Bush’s deliberative style. As Fred I. Greenstein has noted, Bush showed “little intellectual curiosity , and appears not to have been drawn into the play of ideas.”3 In Hugh Heclo’s view, “Bush learns quickly and becomes deeply informed about what he is interested in. But this sort of learning capacity turns into a liability when it comes to things that should interest him but do not.”4 What percolated up through the advisory system and eventually made its way to the president was thus especially crucial to decision-making success. As Bruce Buchanan has observed, Bush is “not a policy wonk, so he has to rely on people who are.” But that reliance can create vulnerability to error: “Bush’s biggest weakness is that he may not be in a position to discern the credibility of the options his advisers lay out for him.”5 Similarly, in the view of Donald Kettl, the success of the Bush decision-making process “depends critically on his staffers’ skill in boiling complex issues down to their essence. If they miss important facts, they risk blinding Bush to things he ought to know. . . . The process, then, risks making the president especially vulnerable to what he and his staff don’t know—or don’t know to ask.”6 Bush relied on a formal advisory system of the sort present in the Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan presidencies. Indeed, it is fair to say he was highly reliant on that formal process, as Reagan was. Yet, unlike Eisenhower, he did not have a sense for the need of vigilance over the process. Unlike Nixon, he lacked sure knowledge of and deep familiarity with foreign policy. Unlike Reagan, his broader foreign policy “vision” was developed on the fly. What percolated up would matter; indeed, in some...