George W. Bush's ambassador to Iraq should lead the Texas A&M government school that bears the Bush family name, a search committee has concluded.
Ryan Crocker served as America's chief diplomat to the war-torn country from 2007 to 2009, capping a 37-year diplomatic career that took him to some of the world's most violent hot spots.
He was one of three finalists who came to Texas A&M in late September and early October to be interviewed for the position of dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service.
The 19-person advisory committee made the recommendation to Interim Provost Karan Watson, the university's top academic official, and Interim President R. Bowen Loftin, a person with knowledge about the search told The Eagle.
It was unclear who the pair decided to recommend to the Board of Regents, which is expected to decide at a meeting scheduled for Thursday and Friday in College Station.
Charles Hermann, one of the members of the search committee, wouldn't confirm that Crocker was the committee's pick but said the body was looking for someone with the "wow factor."
"We wanted to search for a candidate who not only could provide the kind of leadership we need, but would cause people to say, 'Wow!'" said Hermann, director of the Bush school's master's program in international affairs.
Crocker could not be reached for comment Tuesday. His wife, also retired from the U.S. Foreign Service, said from the couple's Spokane, Wash., home that he was in Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. There, he told students at the Command and General Staff College that success in Afghanistan can't be expected to look like Iraq.
An elite three
The search committee was looking for someone who, according to the official position description, had attained "national prominence in education, government, business, or military."
The other two finalists are Montgomery C. Meigs, a visiting professor at the Center for Peace and Security Studies, and S. Enders Wimbush, the director of the Center for Future Security Strategies at the Hudson Institute in Washington.
Meigs has served as a commanding general of the U.S. Army in Europe, where he was responsible for some 55,000 soldiers. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates -- a former Texas A&M president who served two years as the Bush School's interim dean -- later put him in charge of a multibillion-dollar effort to counter improvised explosive devices.
Wimbush was director of Radio Liberty in Munich between 1987 and 1993. He has served as a senior analyst for the RAND Corp. and director of the Society for Central Asian Studies at Oxford.
Officials zipped each candidate through a three-day whirlwind tour of Texas A&M, which included dinner with the search committee, breakfast with deans and a visit to the Bush library and school.
Finalists also met separately with Loftin, Watson, Vice President for Research Jeffrey Seemann and Benton Cocanougher, the interim dean of the school who took over after Dick Chilcoat stepped down from the post at the turn of this year.
The graduate school was founded in 1995 as an academic unit in the College of Liberal Arts. It became a free-standing academic college in 2000 and now has more than 500 students.
The search committee -- which began its work in the spring -- included several of the school's instructors and at least three former regents, including Don Powell, who chaired the committee. He couldn't be reached for this story.
Other members included George P. Bush, the oldest son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; Alexis Herman, U.S. labor secretary in the President Bill Clinton administration; and Eddie J. Davis, president of the Texas A&M Foundation.
A diplomatic life
Crocker, 60, said in his letter of intent that he was impressed with the Bush School students' and faculty's commitment to public service during a March visit to the school.
"I believe I would bring strong managerial experience to the School. As an ambassador, I have led diplomatic missions in some of the world's more difficult places, from Lebanon to Pakistan to Iraq.
"In Lebanon, I successfully reopened the embassy after a closure of more than a year because of security conditions," wrote Crocker, who speaks fluent Arabic.
"In Pakistan, I supervised 2005-2006 earthquake relief operations, the largest and longest U.S. airborne humanitarian mission since the Berlin Airlift. And in Iraq, I oversaw the civilian surge, the largest civilian deployment of executive branch personnel anywhere in the world."
Crocker has been an unwavering advocate of patience in Iraq, arguing for a strong and continued presence of American forces in the country to secure stability.
The ambassador -- who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in January -- shies away from speaking about his beliefs about the wisdom of invading the oil-rich country. But in the run-up to the 2003 invasion, he helped write a six-page memo dubbed "The Perfect Storm" that warned of sectarian violence and other harmful consequences that would result from the toppling of Saddam Hussein's government.
Ever the diplomat, he wrote in a September Newsweek piece that the classified memo "had no operational traction."
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