My first column was about the fact that the current military command, and command climate, probably cannot run this war. No one was more surprised than I when it turned out they had already screwed up. On Day One.

The president of Pakistan tells us that if we take out Mullah Omar, the war will end in a day. Now we learn that the first day of the war, we had him in our sights, twice, and nobody took the shot. Why?

Lawyers.

First the CIA had him. They were operating an unmanned small aircraft armed with anti-tank missiles. They saw the convoy Omar wanders around in andSthey did not shoot. Why? They are the much dreaded CIA! The place where all the assassins work! Not. They are a bunch of clerks, dedicated clerks but clerks nonetheless, who were under strict orders not to kill anyone. Why? Because it's against the law for the CIA to "assassinate" someone.

Digression time. Everyone from the King of Saudi Arabia to the protesters in Berkeley want us to be "surgical". Being perfectly surgical means that you know the names of everyone you are about to kill. "Hey! Mullah Omar is meeting with Bin Laden in this hardened bunker in twenty minutes. Let's blow it up." As if we're actually going to have twenty minutes. But if you know the names of people you are about to kill, it is defined as assassination. Which is forbidden. And if you don't, it ain't surgical. Which is forbidden.

We need to put a spike through the heart of this particular Catch 22 right now. "Dear President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld, please read this column!"/Digression.

Next, they bumped the decision to CentCom under the "leadership" of General Tommy Franks. General Franks then had to ensure that it was legal for them to open fire and bring the whole can of American high tech butt-kicking down on the good Mullah. So did he ask God? Did he ask the President? Did he ask Secretary Rumsfeld? Did he ask himself as, GASP, the commander charged with making this decision? Nah, he asked his Judge Advocate General. And the lawyer said "There are negative legal aspects to this..."

HELLOOO! We're at WAR here people! With the guy you had in your sights! TAKE THE FRIGGIN SHOT!

By the time they got around to deciding it wasn't okay to kill Omar by himself but it was okay to wax the whole block with a wing of F-18s, Omar had left and all we got was "collateral damage." Great. Just great.

The problem is that every one of these so-called professionals is a professional at covering butt. Just as corporations want every single move vetted by their lawyers for "liability issues", so do commanders. This has been the case in every operation we've had since Desert Storm..

Send a patrol in the village? "Has it been vetted by JAG?" Cross this stream? "JAG says that's impermissible." Feed those poor starving refugees that are on the other side of an imaginary line? "JAG says that would violate our ROE." This was how they trained, this is how they fight

This has got to stop right now. Because putting lawyers, effectively, in command does two things.

First, as anyone who has ever dealt with a lawyer will tell you, lawyers never say "yes" unless they have to. So in any situations like this they say "We need further study." Every. Single. Time. The concept of a lawyer saying "Oh, yeah, sure, kill the guy" is about as likely as Hillary Clinton running on a Republican ticket.

Second, there's decision cycle time. This isn't Apple trying to decide which color G-4 will be the most offensive. We are trying to kill people here. And they are trying, generally very hard, to stay alive. They, therefore, tend to move fast. The fewer people involved in a decision, the faster it gets made. This is why they have military units run by commanders not committees. But any commander who didn't like some pettifogging lawyer telling him what he could do and who he could kill got out.

What is worse is that we will soon have people on the ground. And when they need a decision -- "Can we get some artillery?" -- you don't want a lawyer, even one in uniform, saying "there are aspects of this that require further study..." Nor do we need commanders who think asking lawyers what to do is leadership.

Don't get me wrong. Some of my best friends are lawyers. One of them is even a reserve battalion commander. But when he has to make a decision on who lives and who dies, he won't ask another lawyer. He will just look at the ground, look at the sky and then say: "Kill the one-eyed bastard."

General Franks, and every other commander who would "refer this action-item" to anyone but his operations officer and his God, has got to go.

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