A Fine Mess

I am a well-known insomniac, but I am willing to bet money that once I do fall asleep, I'll sleep better than Bob Gates is sleeping.

He serves a feckless and incurious president whose meme of the moment is to call for a surge of troops, "one last push." Meanwhile, the Joint Chiefs of Staff are saying slow down, a surge probably would not be prudent. Then there was Colin Powell on Face the Nation saying that the war isn't lost yet, but it is in the process of being lost, less than 24 hours before Mr. Gates was sworn in.

He faces a disgruntled officer corps and a military that is openly protesting the Iraqi involvement throughout the ranks.

Just look at the mess he has to clean up. The New York Times reports that attacks on American troops in Iraq are at an all-time high, up to 1000 per week by the most recent reports, up from 800 attacks per week a few weeks ago. (Jaw-dropping graphs here).

The violence is spiraling all through the country. Iraqi's are dying horrific violent deaths at a rate of around fifty per day. The militias are out of control, and the police ranks are infested with men who are cops by day and militia commanders by night. First militias ran amok in Amara in October. Then a little over a month later, came the kidnapping in the Education Ministry. Last week, another bold mass kidnapping was conducted in broad daylight when over two dozen Red Crescent workers were taken at gunpoint.

In his first public statements about the war he is now charged with managing and hopefully ending, he said that failure would be a "calamity" that would haunt America for decades. Standard boilerplate, of course. But he also announced immediate plans to visit the commanders on the ground in Iraq.

I have news for Mr. Gates. Iraq is a calamity and it will haunt us for years. It has soured our relations with 1.6 billion of the worlds people first by invading then by conducting our operations in ways that violate international law and the Geneva Conventions against mass punishment of civilian populations.

There are so many problems - urgent problems - that demand attention the risk is in getting spread too thin and accomplishing nothing. The big picture must be carefully scrutinized, and tasks must be prioritized. The decisions he makes now will be significant for the United States armed forces for years to come. I can not stress how critical this juncture is.

As someone said in comments recently - I'm not religious, but I am tempted to petition dieties that Mr. Gates might make wise choices.

Adios [12-letter expletive deleted]

And don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. The success of a Secretary of Defense is this: How fast do they fade into the footnotes of history, all but forgotten? Admit it - the SoD's you remember, you remember because they were horrible, like MacNamara or because they were recent, like William Cohen.

But you will never forget the name Donald Rumsfeld.

The curtain has fallen on the sad chapter of history known as the Rumsfeld Era at the Department of Defense. On his watch the armed services have suffered, the Guard and Reserve are breaking under the undue burden that has been placed upon them and the all-volunteer force that took thirty years to build in the wake of Viet Nam has been decimated in four short years.

He made his rounds, dropping in on the troops in Iraq a couple of days ago, and today there was the obligatory send-off at the Pentagon.

I am no fan of Gates. I've made that clear in past posts. But he is the SecDef until Bush is forced from office, either by time or fiat. A Gates Pentagon is a reality and I have to function in that framework. By that I mean remain hyper-vigilant and keep an eye on every bit of information that comes out of the Pentagon and look for patterns of omission. Gates is a facts-fixer. Hell, he is the original facts-fixer. But you don't need to take my word for it, George Schults says the same thing, and not much more diplomatically.

The biggest thing Gates has going for him? He isn't Rumsfeld, and that's a start at least.

GATES CONFIRMED

Well, the Senate rolled over en masse. In committee yesterday, Iran-Contra wasn't even mentioned; and Gates was up to his eyeballs in that little circumvention of Congress and usurpation of power. Absence of evidence is not the same thing as absence of guilt. (If you don't believe me, just ask your local prosecutor.)

When the whole senate voted for confirmation today, only two senators cast "Nay" votes, and both were Republicans: Jim Bunning of Kentucky and the outgoing Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. Of course, Santorum didn't vote "Nay" because he surrendered to a wave of sanity; in fact it was quite the opposite.

Santorum said he thought Gates did not fully understand the dangers of “Islamic fascism” in the Middle East. (Gates may have issues that cause me to oppose him as SecDef, but misunderestimating the misnomer "islamo-fascism" isn't one of them). He also said that Iran and “its client state of Syria” were fomenting violence in Iraq, and that the Iraq Study Group’s recommendation to engage Iran and Syria was “a prescription for surrender.”

So we have a new Secretary of Defense. Pardon me for being underwhelmed by the Deciders choice.

Caveat Emptor

I get a creepy feeling whenever the name Bob Gates is mentioned. He is a native Wichitan and a former Air Force Officer. I was on my way home from work and about a block from his childhood home when I heard that Poppy Bush had nominated him to be the Director of Central Intelligence. The hair on the back of my neck went up then; and it went up Wednesday when George Bush named him as his nominee to replace the departing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Gates is a career spook, and an ideologue to boot. He was up to his eyeballs in Iran Contra and that Lawrence Walsh never brought charges against him just tells me that he was better at covering his tracks than the ones who got caught. Absence of evidence is not the same thing as absence of guilt.

Gates was the original facts-fixer. George Schultz complained bitterly about Gates, and recounted the following exchange in his memoires: "You deal out intelligence as you deem appropriate. I feel an effort is made to manipulate me by the selection of materials you send my way."

Back in these days, Gates' most ardent supporter was then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney.

An anti-Soviet hawk, and closely allied with the core group of people who would later be identified as Neocons; Gates was wrong about Gorbachev, and if he had won out over Jim Baker, the Cold War would not have ended when it did and it would have probably bankrupted both countries, not just the Soviet Union. Back then, Gates was a Soviet Expert and Deputy Director of the NSA, and Condi's mentor.

I have some ideas for Secretary of Defense that would be much better than Bob Gates. Three names top my list.

First is Sam Nunn who for years was the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He would do a fine job in the position, and since he is a Democrat, Bush would get to trot out that bipartisanship he discovered the day after the election.

Second is Admiral Bobby Inman. When President Clinton nominated Inman to replace Les Aspin as Secretary of Defense the Republicans in the Senate baselessly attacked the mans character and professionalism and behaved like jackasses; simply because he was a Clinton nominee. The Republicans who attacked him then and are still around would likely sit on their hands if Bush were to nominate him to the same position.

Third is Clinton's final Secretary of Defense William Cohen. He has experience in the position and since he was a Republican Senator for many years he should enjoy wide bipartisan support. He also oversaw Kosovo operations and not a single American life was lost. I appreciate that, since I had some skin in that game.

There you go. Three qualified and capable nominees, each one of whom would be a better choice hands down to replace the departing Rumsfeld than Bob Gates, and the nomination of any one of these men would go a long way toward restoring trust between the military and the civilians who oversee it.