A Dilbertian conundrum

Earlier this summer, we had oversight of the expansion of a network in the southern part of Iraq. In order to accomodate this expansion, we tasked another unit to send some soldiers with radios into the Kuwaiti desert, near the border, in order to provide radio coverage for the other site. After two months, the expansion was complete.

So we asked the parent unit (in Baghdad) of the Task Force at the site, "your expansion is complete, so we can call those soldiers back to their base, right?" The response was, "no, the new network doesn't cover as much as we thought. Leave them where they are for another 19 days so we can do some testing." All along, the soldiers were not providing the type of network coverage the Task Force thought they were, only very limited radio coverage in the form of a relay point in case of an emergency. In fact, after the first mission was valianltly accomplished, the soldiers never received any more calls on their radios, since the units leaving the site used the new network that had been so nicely (and expensively) expanded.

So, after some considerable finagling, we finally convinced the Task Force's parent unit (located in Baghdad) that the site no longer needed the limited radio coverage that the soldiers were providing, since no one had called them in over three weeks. The commander of the soldiers' parent unit complained vehemently to all the other colonels around here, but to no avail. Our colonels complained vehemently to the appropriate colonels in Baghdad, but to no avail. The Task Force unit that runs the site still wasn't convinced that they didn't need the soldiers. In fact, the Task Force was convinced that they were using the soldiers' radio services far more than they actually were.

Then two weeks ago our two-star general told his staff to get the soldiers out of the desert site they were occupying, since their services were no longer needed or used because their mission was already accomplished. But the Task Force in Iraq still insisted that they still needed the soldiers' radio coverage as a "backup" in case they needed it -- even though their original mission had long since been so valiantly accomplished, and their limited services had not been used for quite some time. Our one-star general even called his counterpart one-star general in Baghdad. A week went by, and the soldiers were still out there, faithfully manning their silent radios in the desert heat.

And lo and behold, a colonel in another staff section decided to write decision papers requesting that the general order other staff colonels to order the soldiers to stand down. Unbeknownst to either of those colonels or the general, the parent unit of the soldiers learned that generals from both headquarters had agreed that the Task Force did not indeed need the services the soldiers provided, and had thusly decreed that the soldiers' mission was over. So, without informing the Task Force or the general, a major from that parent unit ordered the soldiers to turn off their radios, and stand down from the mission they had so valiantly accomplished.

Word quietly spread of this unofficial ending of the mission; first, it was whispered among some majors, then a few lieutenants colonel, and then a couple of colonels. Another week went by, and the soldiers were still "officially" on watch, or so thought the Task Force and the generals in Baghdad and Kuwait and most of the colonels. Communications tests were planned, and more decision papers were written even by colonels who knew because no one would dare tell the generals that the Task Force did not indeed have the capability that they thought they had, even though they never had the capability they thought in the first place. More colonels called us and wrote us emails, probing us with questions about what services the soldiers provided and how much those services were used and what was their mission in the first place. Even more colonels planned to brief our one-star general on the urgent need to release the soldiers from the desert radio-guarding mission they had already, long ago, so valiantly accomplished.

Then finally, during an afternoon briefing today related to the situation at hand, our two-star general once again decreed to "Pull those soldiers!" Curiously, he never asked why they were still there when he clearly gave the same order two weeks ago.

After the meeting, I called that major to tell him the "official" word had come down. He laughed.

So, to recap: a Task Force in southern Iraq made a group of soldiers they never met sit 25 miles away in the Kuwaiti desert for six extra weeks guarding radios, not providing a service the Task Force thought they were getting, even though they were heroically providing a service no one was using, and the during the entire last week the radios weren't on at all but the Task Force didn't complain because they didn't know.

I swear to God, Scot Adams works here somewhere.