Posted on 12/05/2006 10:55:00 AM PST by meg88
Gates Before the Senate: Welcome Candor on Iraq It didn't take long, at his confirmation hearings for Defense Secretary, for Robert Gates to give Senate Democrats some answers they've been desperate for.
After four years of rosy predictions and verbal sparring from Donald Rumsfeld over the Iraq war, Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee were desperate for some candor out of the man George Bush has picked to replace him — and that's what they got as Bob Gates's confirmation hearing began Tuesday morning. Sen. Carl Levin, who will take over the committee chairmanship in January, hit Gates with a loaded question right off the bat: "Do you believe that we are currently winning in Iraq?"
Gates was equally blunt in responding. "No, sir," he said simply.
Levin's follow-up question was just as freighted. The senator pulled out a quote from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, from a Nov. 23 press conference, and read it to Gates: "The crisis is political, and it is the politicians who must try to prevent more violence and bloodletting. The terrorist acts are a reflection of the lack of political accord." Levin asked Gates if he agreed with Maliki's statement.
"Yes sir, I do," Gates answered.
Gates's answer was important. In Levin's view, Maliki's statement reinforced the Democrats' own arguments for a gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces. "There's no military solution here now," Levin explained to TIME last week. "There's only a political solution now. That's why we should not put so much emphasis on a military solution and we should force the politicians to reach some kind of compromise on Iraq."
In response to another question from Levin, Gates indicated that he would be open to modest troop withdrawals to force the Iraqi political leadership to take on more responsibility for security. "All options are on the table," Gates said. He also was not shy about suggesting that Rumsfeld had made misjudgments in the Iraq war. Asked by Republican John McCain if the Pentagon had too few troops in Iraq at the outset — something the senator has long argued — Gates agreed. "There clearly were insufficient troops in Iraq after the initial invasion," the former CIA director said.
Levin, who had voted against Gates's nomination to be CIA director 15 years ago, seemed almost relieved that the current president of Texas A&M was willing now to take over the Defense Department. Simply hearing Gates acknowledge that the U.S. was not winning the war is "a necessary refreshing breath of reality," Levin said.
If senators like Levin are won over, Gates will face little trouble getting confirmed. Levin was one of those who voted against Gates when he last appeared before the Senate for confirmation hearings - after George Herbert Walker Bush picked him to be CIA director in 1991 and critics accused him slanting intelligence to suit anti-Soviet harliners during the Reagan administration. Levin threw out only one softball question about those old charges — which Gates easily handled. Levin was far more interested in how Gates would deal with Iraq.
Gates, a member of the Iraq Study Group that will make public its recommended course corrections on Wednesday, said he was "open to a wide range of ideas and proposals." He also insisted that despite Bush's stay-the-course rhetoric, the President "wants me to take a fresh look" at Iraq.
Shouldn't it be "Iraq Surrender Group"?
Or "Iraq Bugout Group"?
Rumsfield said just about the same thing is his final memo....he had the forces cut substantially by summer of 07.
In the last 2 1/2 years of Truman's presidency 30,000 Americans gave their lives for Korea's freedom.
Do Democrats think only Democratic presidents like Truman, who hinted he would use the A-Bomb, deserve support in their wars?
Can somebody, anybody in this administration tell these traitors that the war in Iraq IS NOT ABOUT IRAQ?! It is about the will of the United States to stick with a fight to the finish. If we quit, the message to the world is that the way to get America to do what you want, whatever it is, is make us bleed just a little bit for just a tiny mite longer than our fat dumb happy people's minute attention span can stand. And so we will be attacked again and again, in a rising curve, until the worst happens and the only option we have left on the table is nuclear retaliation against whomever. This is where the peace at any price crowd is taking us.
Sheesh, rant off.
Where are the Truman Democrats? Gone, for the most part.
You got it, Argus. Short-term gain for a lot of long-term pain.
"Rumsfield said just about the same thing is his final memo"
CYA. He had three years to write that memo. He knew the firing was coming, tried to save some face - after three years.
He's lucky with lefties like Levin trying to frame the crisis as uniquely apart from military and security Rumsfeld's dark place in history will be overlooked by the new Dem congress. They don't want to know that the war could have been won better, faster.
I'll say Rumsfeld was funny otherwise. The "Old Europe" crack was hilarious.
....Rumsfeld was correct to write it and have it leaked. It makes Bush look even more intolerant of other views and much more stubborn....but hell, I'd watch out for my legacy too
#9
Everybody is stabbing Bush these days.
Bush didn't decide force deployments. What Rumsfeld told him he said yes.
You are correct......on the other hand, Rummy didn't decide "nation building". What Bush told him, he said yes
and maybe that's the place to go. we simply cannot sustain a low level conflict like this, 80KIA per month, the media pounding away daily, poor communications from the white house (remember Scott McClellan?), lack of visible progress, etc.
we would have been better off fighting "total war" for 12 months, taking 3000 KIA in that time - then losing 800-1000 KIA per year over 3 years. The american people would have been more accepting of that kind of war, then this one. that's another lesson of Vietnam we didn't learn - americans will support you if they see you are fighting to win, they won't support a "fight for stalemate".
That's why reading old newspapers is so rewarding. We can see what times were like, way back when Democrats shouldered the burden of defending the free world.
We can read about the fears of the Europeans that Truman would be so involved in protecting Korea, that he would forget to defend Europe
We can read about fears of the people in San Francisco's Chinatown
The city's famed Chinatown, largest Chinese community outside the orient, feared today that the intervention of the Chinese Communists in Korea might bring about "unpleasant repercussions" here. Influential Chinese leaders were reticent about discussing the subject. However, some shopkeepers and restaurant owners cautiously admitted they had noted signs of "resentment" on the part of Caucasians. (From:Syracuse Herald-Tribune, December 1, 1950 p16)
Where are the Truman Republicans? Gates supports a withdrawal from Iraq -- that's not victory.
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