GovernmentExecutive.com

Nobody likes to be the bearer of bad news. But in the career federal service, the job comes with the territory. While higher-ups talk of dreams, visions and grand plans, career executives, managers and employees must deal with the hard work of implementation - and point out when objectives are based on faulty data, lack sufficient resources or simply will fail to achieve desired objectives.

That's never an easy task. But it's becoming more and more difficult, because across government, a shoot-the-messenger attitude is beginning to prevail when it comes to challenging the conventional wisdom. The trend has dangerous consequences.

The most prominent recent example involves intelligence about weapons of mass destruction programs in Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

In the January/February issue of our sister publication, The Atlantic Monthly, Kenneth M. Pollack, who served on the National Security Council in the Clinton administration, provides a detailed account of intelligence efforts to determine the nature of Iraq's WMD programs prior to last year's U.S.-led invasion of the country. The intelligence community, he admits, greatly overestimated Iraq's capability to develop and deploy such weapons -- especially nuclear weapons. Indeed, such analysis led Pollack himself to write a book, The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq (Random House, 2002).

But that wasn't the only problem. Throughout the spring and fall of 2002 and well into 2003, Pollack received numerous complaints from friends and colleagues about how Bush administration officials were dealing with intelligence that didn't conform to the party line. "According to them," Pollack writes, "many administration officials reacted strongly, negatively and aggressively when presented with information or analysis that contradicted what they already believed about Iraq."

Bush officials repeatedly asked intelligence analysts to justify their work, gave great credence to dubious sources and demanded extensive, time-consuming studies of extraneous reports, such as the writings of conservative newspaper columnists. The administration eventually set up an organization in the Pentagon, the Office of Special Plans, to conduct its own analyses of Iraq intelligence.

Congressional and CIA investigators have concluded that analysts did not alter any of their findings as a result of political pressure. Nevertheless, it seems clear that dissent from the party line was at least discouraged.

Likewise, the space shuttle Columbia Accident Investigation Board determined last year that NASA's "culture of bureaucratic accountability" put "allegiance to hierarchy and procedure" ahead of challenges to accepted conclusions by technical experts. After the foam-debris strike during the Columbia launch, engineers at several NASA centers "showed initiative and jumped on the problem without direction from above," the board found. But the engineers' request for imagery from the Defense Department to determine the extent of damage to the shuttle was turned down because they hadn't shown a "mandatory need" for the information and hadn't run their request through the proper channels.

"For those with lesser standing, the requirement for data was stringent and inhibiting, which resulted in information that warned of danger not being passed up the chain of command," the board concluded.

The only thing more dangerous in government than trying to convey bad news up the hierarchy is going public with it. Just ask Teresa Chambers, the Park Police chief suspended late last year for telling a Washington Post reporter that the agency didn't have the resources to do its job.

National Park Service Deputy Director Donald Murphy charged Chambers with a host of violations, including improper disclosure of budget deliberations, failure to carry out a supervisor's instructions and - the classic offense - not following the chain of command.

It's clear that the crux of the issue was not the substance of Chambers' remarks, but the fact, as Murphy said in a voicemail to Chambers prior to her suspension, that "the messages that you are sending out are not consistent with the department's message and what we want to be saying on our budgeting for the U.S. Park Police."

It would be easy to point fingers and say the increasing lack of tolerance for dissent in government is the fault of the political leadership of the Bush administration. But the problem has been building for years - and remember, in the case of NASA, the problems that stifled disagreement had little to do with politics and much to do with an organizational culture in which "failure is not an option."

In this era of ballooning budget deficits, increased media scrutiny and decreased public patience for poor performance by federal agencies, it takes a lot of courage to stand up and challenge the conventional wisdom. But if those in the career federal service are serious about their obligation to be public servants as well as civil servants, they must.

COMMENTS

• This is absolutely not surprising given the company mentality of the current administration. The shareholders matter more than the customers and in the case of the current administration, the shareholders are all the pioneers and corporate special interest groups having the access. Us poor customers end up second rate. These corporate types also don't appreciate government in the sunshine since that would expose the sad truth- so in the interest of meeting their "corporate" responsibilities they continue to shut down dissent- it comes naturally to such corporate suits. Their ultimate problem is that federal career employees don't think like corporate drones. Most of us have been inculcated that we work for the American people, not the corporate suit Schedule C of the week. And it is a really big government to try and stiffle dissent and whistleblowing everywhere. These suits think that by shutting up Ms. Chambers they have taught everyone a lesson. But in reality for all the civil servants, they have simply exposed their true nature and hopefully this next election in November will fix a three year old mistake by the Supreme Court. GovExec.com reader Posted February 4, 2004 7:29 AM
• What seems to be happening is that agencies take perfectly good engineers and ruin them by making them managers. I mean, do we have MBA's designing things? The predictable & obvious result is an inept manager surrounding him/herself with fellow technonerds that are mutually supporting of ever worsening decisions. I have had the unfortunate experience to have had to work for a misplaced engineer: We brought him an issue (with supporting data) & were told, "There is not enough data." So he was provided more supporting data - to which he replied, "Too much data, no focus." Hummm, sounds like our Boy George at the White House. GovExec.com reader Posted February 3, 2004 3:06 PM
• I have in the past been critical of GovExec authors who have not been supportive of the view points of those in Government and continually support the "party line". In this article I believe Mr. Tom Shoop did an excellent job of stating something I see daily as a civilian employed by DOD. It seems that the entire Department of Defense is very, very, against any opposition to the planned agendas of OMB, Mr. Rumsfield, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush. Whether the opposition is to point out that a contractor is failing to provide a service or product; that downsizing DOD any more at this point in time could be detrimental to our service men and women, or that we should not continue to provide contracts to Halliburton, the results are always the same - - IGNORED BY MANAGEMENT. I believe they are ignored because they are under so much pressure to meet the goals of the political administration. Unfortunately, the only choice, we citizens may have to change this, is to vote out Mr. Bush. GovExec.com reader Posted February 3, 2004 12:58 PM