New Defense Secretary Robert Gates

Why Gate appointed
Robert Gates is a member of the Iraq Study Committee chaired by Republican former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Democrat Representative Lee H. Hamilton. It was Bush 41 and his friend, General Brent Skowcroft, Bush 41's National Security Advisor who urged this study group be established. They have been going nuts over Bush 43's entry into and handling of the Iraq war. I wouldn't be surprised if mom Barbara Bush threatened Bush 43 with the wrath of hell if he didn't start listening to his father.

I think the Gate nomination has been in the works for months. I think George Bush is finally listening to his father and his father's former staff.

By firing Donald Rumsfeld, Bush also has cut himself off from the ideological influence of Vice President Dick Cheney, who has fiercely defended his friend, Rumsfeld. It is obvious that the ideologue Neocons are toast. Finally, Bush 43 may start getting some good advice who know what they are doing.

BBB

After Rumsfeld: Bid to Reshape the Brain Trust
New York Times
November 10, 2006
After Rumsfeld: Bid to Reshape the Brain Trust
By DAVID E. SANGER

Robert M. Gates, President Bush's choice to become defense secretary, has sharply criticized the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war and has made it clear that he would seek advice from moderate Republicans who have been largely frozen out of the White House, according to administration officials and Mr. Gates's close associates.

The administration officials said that Mr. Bush was aware of Mr. Gates's critique of current policy and understood that Mr. Gates planned to clear the "E Ring" of the Pentagon, where many of Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's senior political appointees have plotted Iraq strategy.

Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, said Thursday afternoon that Mr. Bush regarded his choice of Mr. Gates as "a terrific opportunity" to rethink Iraq.

In doing so, Mr. Gates will be drawing on his experience and contacts from the administration of Mr. Bush's father, including the former security adviser Brent Scowcroft and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III. "Gates's world is Brent Scowcroft and Baker and a whole bunch of people who felt the door had been slammed in their face," one former official who has discussed Iraq at length with Mr. Gates said Thursday. "The door is about to reopen."

A close friend of Mr. Gates's described him as having been "clearly distraught over the incompetence of how the Iraq operation had been run." The friend said Mr. Gates had returned from a recent visit to Baghdad expressing disbelief that Mr. Rumsfeld, whom Mr. Bush ousted Wednesday, had not responded more quickly to the rapid deterioration of security and that the president had not acted sooner to overhaul the management of the war.

Mr. Gates made his visit as a member of the Iraq Study Group, the commission that is preparing to make recommendations next month about overhauling Iraq strategy. Associates said that Mr. Gates had questioned military leaders there about whether more American troops in the capital could stem the violence, and whether the training of Iraqi troops could be overhauled.

"He didn't take a view," one colleague said of Mr. Gates. "But he understood the depth of the mess."

Mr. Gates has said little in public about Iraq in his current role as president of Texas A&M University. The associates and administration officials would speak only on condition of anonymity because Mr. Gates will face Senate confirmation. But they made it clear that recently he had privately been critical of the administration's approach.

Senior administration officials have said that pouring more troops into the most violent of the Baghdad neighborhoods is among the possibilities that Mr. Bush may now consider. But they cautioned that the president was hesitant to commit more forces unless Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki provided far more Iraqi troops to the effort. Until now, Mr. Bush has resisted calls from Republicans like Senator John McCain of Arizona, to increase the size of the American force, just as he has rebuffed calls for setting deadlines for the withdrawal of American troops.

On Thursday morning, Mr. Bush said, "I'm open to any idea or suggestion that will help us achieve our goals of defeating the terrorists and ensuring that Iraq's democratic government succeeds."

Meeting with reporters later, Mr. Hadley called attention to what he said was a change in tone. "I think you noted the president said the other day that what was going on in Iraq in terms of our efforts were not working well enough and not working fast enough," he said.

During the campaign leading up to Tuesday's elections, Mr. Bush declared unambiguously on several occasions that "we're winning" and vowed not to leave Iraq until victory had been achieved. Over the past two days, however, several officials said that Mr. Gates would likely be given some latitude to redefine what constitutes victory.

Mr. Hadley sidestepped a question about a report Mr. Gates co-wrote two years ago urging direct engagement with Iran ?- a step Mr. Bush has so far refused to take until Iran suspends its enrichment of uranium. But Mr. Hadley said he was certain that before Mr. Gates accepted the nomination, the two men were "pretty confident themselves that they're on the same page on the basic pillars of the president's foreign policy."

Other officials, however, said that Mr. Gates's appointment was timed to anticipate the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, created earlier this year with the reluctant agreement of the White House. The two leaders of that group, Mr. Baker and Lee H. Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman, resisted holding any discussions about what recommendations the commission should make until after the election, for fear their deliberations would leak or become politicized. The group will meet with Mr. Bush on Monday and Democratic leaders on Tuesday, and it will reconvene to settle on recommendations immediately after Thanksgiving, according to members of the commission.

Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said Thursday that Mr. Bush had not asked Mr. Gates before choosing him as defense secretary about any conversations he might have had with other members of the Iraq Study Group.

"He's been very clear about the importance that that ?- those deliberations and that advice ?- remain confidential and independent," Mr. Snow said of Mr. Bush.

Mr. Gates, 63, has not tipped his hand on the changes he would favor, and several officials said they now expected him to recuse himself from the study group's deliberations, because he would have to advise Mr. Bush about which of the recommendations to accept. But several administration officials said they saw his appointment as part of a carefully orchestrated course change in which Mr. Bush fired the man who became the symbol of resistance to changes of tactics and hired one of his critics.

Inside the White House and the State Department on Thursday, officials were already speculating about the informal advisers Mr. Gates was expected to bring in with him, talking about them as if they were the cast of an old television show that suddenly developed a new life in reruns. Among them are moderate Republicans like Mr. Scowcroft and Mr. Baker who worked for the president's father, including those who regarded Iraq as a "war of choice" that distracted the United States from bigger terrorist threats.

Mr. Scowcroft, who was a mentor to Mr. Gates and to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, was traveling out of the country and could not be reached. But one of Mr. Scowcroft's business partners, Arnold Kanter, a top State Department official when Mr. Bush's father was president, said he expected that Mr. Gates would "take a thoroughly pragmatic approach to finding an Iraq solution."

Mr. Gates, he said, "is poised to be George W. Bush's Clark Clifford." It was a reference to the elder statesman whom President Johnson tapped in 1968 to succeed Robert S. McNamara, the polarizing figure who became the face of a failed war.

Gates was astonished by what he found in Iraq
The Sunday Times UK
November 12, 2006

IF Robert Gates had any illusions about the scale of violence in Iraq, they were dispelled when he flew into Baghdad last summer.

Gates, who was named US defence secretary last week by President George W Bush, had gone to observe conditions at first hand as a member of the Iraq Study Group, the independent commission co-chaired by James Baker, the former secretary of state. It was a terrifying experience.

As the aircraft entered Iraqi airspace, the team donned helmets and flak jackets. "You're dropping 10,000ft and you've got to avoid missiles. As soon as you land, you're flown by helicopter to the green (international) zone. There were attack helicopters all around us firing flares to make sure that the heat-seeking missiles didn't hit us," said one of his travelling companions.

Once there, Gates met the key players from the American ambassador and US generals to Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's beleaguered prime minister. A close associate described him as "distraught over the incompetence of how the Iraq operation had been run".

He went on to ask sharp questions, including whether more American troops were needed to shore up the Iraqi capital.

"Gates is open to a lot of suggestions. He hasn't got a closed mind," the source added.

Donald Rumsfeld, his predecessor at the Pentagon, has never been regarded as a listener. After the pasting Bush received in the midterm elections last week, it was clear his tough-minded defence secretary was going to take the fall for a war that has claimed the lives of 2,846 American soldiers. But the pressure is on Gates to do more than canvass opinions. Will he be able to take the hard decisions necessary to chart a new course in Iraq?

Bush claimed last week that he was "open to any ideas" on how to win in Iraq. He is to meet members of the Baker commission tomorrow to discuss their thinking. On Tuesday Tony Blair will give evidence to them by video link. He will urge the Bush administration to open talks with Iran and Syria on a Middle East settlement.

Gates will not take much persuading from Blair, having argued for dialogue with Iran two years ago. "He comes from the old Bush 1 school that it's important to talk to your enemies, but we can't underestimate the role the president plays in all this and he's been pretty intransigent," said a colleague on the Iraq Study Group.

The irony is that Gates will no longer participate in the Baker group's meetings as he is in purdah until he can be confirmed in his post by the Senate, probably next month. Around the same time, the Baker group is due to finalise its report.

A new direction for Iraq cannot come too soon. According to the Iraqi health minister, 150,000 Iraqis have been killed since the US invasion. The Baghdad morgue received 1,600 victims of violent deaths last month, compared with 1,100 in September. Two bombs in one of the capital's crowded markets killed eight people yesterday.

Inside the Pentagon, some old hands are wondering whether the coolly analytical Gates, a former head of the CIA and friend of the first President George Bush, is enough of a risk-taker to turn the situation around.

"He tacks right to the middle," said a defence source. "He's the guy who can hold the reins, get confirmed and get through the next two years without the Democrats cutting off the money." But can he produce an effective plan for victory? The Democrats are already laying plans for a withdrawal timetable now that they control Congress. Senator Carl Levin, prospective chairman of the Senate armed services committee, said the Iraqis needed to know there was "no open-ended commitment".

Rumsfeld had never been enthusiastic about nation-building in Iraq. He had wanted a quick shock and awe war, followed by an American exit. "I will say this," he told students in New York the day after his resignation, "it is very clear that the major combat operations were an enormous success. It is clear that, in phase two of this, it has not been going well enough or fast enough."

The prospect of a Democrat victory in the mid-term elections had been bothering Rumsfeld for weeks. He had first offered his resignation over the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib but the president had brushed it off. About a fortnight ago, he told Bush he was prepared to quit in the event of a Republican defeat.

"If the Democrats had only won the House of Representatives, it is possible he might have stayed on," said a senior defence source. "But if they also won the Senate, he was determined to go. He thought that if the Democrats ran the Senate armed forces committee as well as the House, he would never get any business done."

In September, Rumsfeld underwent surgery on his left shoulder for an old sports injury. The operation was successful but left him in pain. At 74, the multi-millionaire Rumsfeld decided it was not worth fighting congressional investigations for years.

In any case, Bush had been toying with the idea of dumping his defence secretary for months, although he told reporters on the campaign trail that he would stay on. Many Republican supporters are furious that Rumsfeld was not sacked before the elections. "Rumsfeld is a distraction," said one senior military officer. "What did he do to help the president?" It was not only the elections that prompted his departure. A sign that he was losing the confidence of his generals came a few weeks ago when James Jones, the Nato commander, was touted as a possible replacement for General John Abizaid at Centcom, the top Middle East command post.

Jones is said to have asked Rumsfeld whether the Iraq strategy would change. When he was told it would not, he withdrew his name from consideration.

Bush had hoped to let Rumsfeld become the longest-serving defence secretary. On December 28, he was due to beat a record set by Robert McNamara in the Vietnam era. He will not now overtake McNamara unless Gates's selection is held up by Congress.

Andrew Card, Bush's former chief of staff, twice tried to get rid of Rumsfeld, according to Bob Woodward's book, State of Denial. His top choice to replace him was Baker.

Baker let slip recently that he regularly dropped by the White House to discuss "policy and personnel". A senior White House official confirmed Baker had praised Gates to the president. Gates is being described by critics on the right as Baker's "surrogate".

Potential areas of agreement are already emerging from deliberations at the Pentagon, which is conducting a secret review of strategy, and the Iraq Study Group. Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said on Friday: "We need to give ourselves a good honest scrub about what is working and what is not."

Once Gates becomes defence secretary, the two reviews will effectively be merged, giving him the chance to cherry pick the best recommendations from both.

According to sources close to the Baker commission, Gates is believed to share the consensus view that the Iraqis need to be coaxed into a constitutional settlement, which would lead to greater devolution for Sunnis, Kurds and Shi'ites and a share in oil wealth for the embittered Sunni minority.

"You've got to find the sweet spot," said Andrew Krepinevich, a Pentagon adviser and director of the Center for Strategy and Budgetary Assessments, a think tank. "If you give them too much autonomy, you effectively have independent states." Bush has already ruled out moves to partition Iraq.

Gates is thought to favour massing US forces in Baghdad, where winning control of the streets is considered vital for the survival of the Maliki government, but US generals have told him that it may be better to increase the number of Iraqi units.

If more US forces are deployed, Gates will have to order units to pull back from the northern Kurdish regions to avoid sending more troops, which would be opposed by congressional Democrats. He will also seek to embed greater numbers of American officers in the Iraqi security forces.

Troop reductions will be linked to political and military "benchmarks", leaving a rapid reaction force behind to cope with any rise in insurgency. Ultimately US forces could be redeployed to other countries, such as Kuwait. But Gates is understood to share the view of US generals that it could take 12-18 months to bring troop levels below 100,000.

While Gates backs Britain's proposal for talks with Iran, Syria and other regional powers, it would require a volte-face at the White House. "We're certainly capable of being a bridge, but the Bush administration would have to change its tone a lot," said a British diplomatic source.

Sir Nigel Scheinwald, Blair's foreign policy adviser, paid a secret visit to President Bashar al-Assad last month, but the reaction of the Americans to the initiative was disappointing. "I was surprised they didn't go towards meeting us halfway," the source added. "Their reaction was vitriolic: it was, ?'We'll never speak to these people'."

The extent of any Iranian co-operation in a grand regional bargain is also open to question. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed Bush's defeat in the mid-term elections last week as a victory for Tehran. He has rightly concluded that a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities is off the agenda.

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, is certain to discuss Iran and the Middle East peace process when he meets Bush tomorrow, but seems as unlikely as Bush to order an attack on Tehran, despite his deputy defence minister's sabre-rattling talk last week about the possible need for pre-emptive strikes as a "last resort".

The chief hawk in the cabinet, vice-president Dick Cheney, has become a diminished figure after Rumsfeld's exit. "He's not isolated because he's right down the hall," said Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard, a conservative journal, and author of Rebel in Chief, a biography of Bush. "But one of his best friends and mentors is leaving, and that won't help his influence."

For a foreign policy realist such as Gates, perhaps the best hope for progress in Iraq is likely to come from the Iraqis themselves. Saddam's call for "all Iraqis, Arabs and Kurds, to forgive, reconcile and shake hands" after he was sentenced to hang appears to be having some effect, according to defence sources.

Last week, Saddam's former second-in-command, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a rebel leader with a $10m bounty on his head, called on Sunnis to stop fighting. At the same time, the Maliki government promised that all but the most senior officials ?- about 1,500 ?- from Saddam's Ba'athist regime could return to work or receive their pensions.

As Rumsfeld claimed, the future of Iraq depends on a political rather than a military solution. Gates might be able to persuade Bush to be more flexible.

In this, he could learn from the British, who take an elastic view of such matters. According to a senior diplomatic source, "Baker is trying to walk away from the idealist, neoconservative approach to democracy . . . We say democracy is what the people of a country understand it to be."