Life has been very hectic for me over the past month. I moved to a new city the day after my 40th birthday. I began a slightly new job for the same company in a new city, so there was a lot of setup for that as well as moving all my stuff into an apartment.

I have not really paid a lot of attention to current events, but this caught my eye.

It seems the Bush Administration screwed up again. The day after the Paul Wolfowitz at the Pentagon announced that France, Germany, Russia and Canada will be cut out of any contracts in Iraq, the President asked those countries to forgive Iraq's debt to them. Bush was described as "distinctly unhappy" that he had to deal with foreign leaders who had just found out about being excluded from contracts.

Bush's unhappiness is understandable, given that the pentagon just threw away the administration's bargaining chips for dealing with Iraq's debt. In addition, this is likely to set back further the improvement of already strained relations with the anti-Iraq coalition governments.

Wolfowitz claims that the policy is not punitive, but forward looking. According to the directive, "Limiting competition for prime contracts will encourage the expansion of international cooperation in Iraq and in future efforts." Also, limiting the competition will "encourage the continued cooperation of coalition members." Talking Points Memo, December 10, 2003

The conflicting directives coming out of the Bush administration are tearing the government apart, as well as hampering reconstruction in Iraq and trampling 50-plus-year-old alliances with France, Germany and Canada. Josua Marshall at Talking Points Memo put forth an idea, tongue firmly in cheek. That is that we need a new executive branch foreign policy coordinator to "ride herd" over interagency disputes. Marhsall also suggested a name for the position, something like National Security Advisor. He has a point. I have given Condoleeza Rice the benefit of the doubt for a long time, but the breakdown of cooperation between the State Department, CIA, Pentagon and the Vice-President's office should never have happened, especially when all of these agencies needed to be united to fight an overseas war. Rice just has not been able to keep them all in line. Perhaps it is time to start looking elsewhere for someone who can.