Posted on 11/11/2006 6:34:36 PM PST by freedom44
Step forward Robert Gates, newly nominated by George W Bush as the US Secretary of State for Defence in place of the unlamented Donald Rumsfeld. Like Rumsfeld, the new man is left over from the days of Bush's father who, prior to becoming vice-president in 1980 under Reagan, was director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Gates was one of his rising stars, and by 1983 was acting director of the agency.
In that year, the Democrat-controlled Congress - recognising what a bunch of desperadoes they were backing in the Contras - cut off further funding. The White House's determination to circumvent this legislation turned into the Iran-Contra affair - the Americans sold missile parts to Iran at greatly inflated prices and the surplus millions were channelled to the Contras so that their war of terror could, quite illegally, continue.
In 1991, Gates was nominated by George Bush Snr for the post of CIA director and was appointed only after a great deal of controversy about his Iran-Contra role. Fifteen years later, there is something uncanny about the way in which George W Bush repeatedly awakens ghosts of the past by placing faith in villains from the court of his father. This time round, however, it is doubtful if Ortega will feature very high on Mr Gates's hit-list.
Already, Gates is on record urging direct negotiations with Iran in the impasse over nuclear capability. It will be no surprise if these discussions are widened to include the future of Iraq, at which point the exit strategy really will be under way. The mullahs in Tehran can be confident from past history that Mr Gates knows how to get in touch with them.
(Excerpt) Read more at scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com ...
AP is reporting today that Tony Blair will be urging Bush to negotiate with Iran, too. Seems the script is already written...
negotiate with bombs
what exactly has happened since august 31 when iran was to stop enriching uranium? i will ask the same question on december 11th, and get the same darned answer
Heck, Iran doesn't have to cave to anyone else's demands! It won the U.S. election!! By December 11th, Iran will be doing photo-ops with Blair and Bush.
(You live in Massachusetts? My condolences. Not that NH is any better after Tuesday's election...)
Title correction.
A man that Iran's mullahs can work [Ayatollah Gates]
Uh, no. The Sandinistas prevailed because our ally Somoza was betrayed by Jimmy Carter, the same man responsible for stabbing the Shah in the back and losing Iran to the Ayatollahs.
Psst. Remember this? Guess whose files were missing a la Clinton 1996...
White House Collected Many More Confidential Files
http://www-cgi.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/news/9606/26/fbi.files/
Looks to me like Gates was brought in to start the cut and run process.
Seminal moments of irrational exuberance
(http://www.suntimes.com/news/will/132338,CST-EDT-GEO12.article)
November 12, 2006
BY GEORGE WILL
".........Rumsfeld's replacement, Robert Gates, by virtue of his service on the Iraq Study Group chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, is already immersed in the agonizing choices that must be made. And having been deputy national security adviser in 1991, Gates knows why the first President Bush declined to extend Operation Desert Storm beyond the liberation of Kuwait to regime change in Baghdad...."
"Gates, who was there when the questions were asked, seems to be of the realist school, reluctant to engage in regime change as a prelude to nation-building. And we may hope that as director of the CIA he learned the most important thing a government can know: what it is that it doesn't know. Such knowledge inoculates governments against irrational exuberance...."
Don't forget, they (Contras) were betrayed again by our demorat Congress.
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