U.S. N&WR:
Gates: 'We Need to Stay' in Iraq
By Kevin Whitelaw
Posted 11/8/06
<http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/061108/8gatesqa.htm?s_cid=rss:site1>
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With President Bush nominating former CIA Director Robert Gates to
replace Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense, Washington is
scrambling to figure out what the change might mean for policy in Iraq.
For one thing, it is the first clear signal that Bush is looking for a
new path. Gates has been serving on the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan
panel headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and former
Congressman Lee Hamilton, which is due to release its new strategy for
Iraq in the coming weeks.
But perhaps the clearest signs comes from Gates's own recent remarks.
Some of his most extensive public comments came a year ago and suggest
that his appointment might not bring about the quick withdrawal that
some Democrats in Congress have been calling for.
"For better or for worse, we have cast our lot and we need to stay there
as long as necessary to get the job done," Gates said May 9, 2005,
during a lecture series hosted by Leon Panetta, former chief of staff
for President Clinton. "I think it would be a disservice to the young
men and women who have given their lives and been casualties in Iraq to
leave prematurely and have everything go back to being the way it was."
At the same time, his definition of victory is perhaps less sweeping
than the democratic vision sketched out repeatedly by President Bush.
"We all hope that it will be quick–that in a year or two, this
government in Iraq will be secure enough that they will be able to
invite us to leave and we can do so, leaving behind us a government that
can survive and that will be very different from what preceded it," he said.
He also provided a more sober assessment of U.S. military capabilities,
particularly with so many U.S. resources tied up in Iraq.
"The truth of the matter is, I think that Iran and North Korea today
probably feel somewhat safer than they did two years ago," he said,
"because the notion that the United States could fight a full-scale war
in Korea right now is just silly. We couldn't."
His remarks also suggest that he is skeptical of Rumsfeld's vision of
military transformation, which envisioned a smaller, more agile force.
Instead, Gates recalled that in the run-up to the 1991 Gulf War, so many
U.S. troops were tied up in Saudi Arabia that the United States did not
have enough additional capacity to fight a simultaneous war with North
Korea. The problem, he suggested, is even worse now.
"We don't have the air power. We don't have the intelligence," he said.
"We don't have anything that's big enough to do that with what we have
now. So I agree that I think we need to increase our capacity, but I
think we also need to change–and go back in terms of the way that
capacity is structured."
More of his remarks can be found here.
<http://www.panettainstitute.org/lib/05/Berger_Gates.htm>
