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Onward,
Alexander, Jeffrey, Becky and Deva
November
14, 2006
The Insider
Gates
to the Pentagon
By DAVID MacMICHAEL
The nomination of Robert Gates, former
Director of Central Intelligence during the George H. W. Bush
(Bush I) administration and current member of the Baker-Hamilton
Iraq policy team and, simultaneously, president of Texas A&M
University, to replace the displaced (and disgraced) Donald Rumsfeld
as Secretary of Defense has set up what appears to be the first
major confrontation between Democrats, newly confident after
their resounding electoral victory ( the "thumping")
in the congressional elections of last week and the limping lame
duck Bush administration.
Gates' supporters present him
as an experienced Washington insider (which he undeniably is)
and a skilled administrator (on which subject there is some debate)
as well as a pragmatic, non-ideological bureaucrat without any
particular political or policy agenda who will make sure the
Department of Defense, while responding to the direction of the
commander-in-chief president, also adheres to the budgetary and
legislative direction of the Congress, and, at the same time,
listens both to the advice and counsel of the senior military
leadership-i.e., the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as field commanders-and
respects the intelligence provided by the intelligence community,
all these in contrast to the alleged practices of the departed
Rumsfeld.
Not only that, the Gates backers
argue, the fact that Gates was not only an appointee as DCI of
Bush I but that he is currently with the Bush I-era "wise
men" on the Baker-Hamilton committee, has no baggage associated
with the Rumsfeld manipulation of intelligence during the run-up
to the Iraq invasion, and has no history of ignoring the military
leadership's advice and warnings. Moreover, during the inevitable
investigations the new Democratic Congress will carry out about
questionable Defense Department practices-especially in the letting
and supervision of military contractors-Gates, without the aforesaid
Rumsfeld baggage-can be assumed to be more forthcoming. Thus,
he can undertake his new responsibilities with a relatively clean
slate and do his part in changing the US national security change
of course according to the expected advice of the Baker-Hamilton
"adults."
On the other hand, Gates, inevitably,
given his long history as a national security insider, does not
lack for detractors. Most of these are, in fact, former colleagues
in the Central Intelligence Agency, where Gates spent over 30
years, mostly as a Soviet analyst, prior to becoming, successively,
the head of the CIA's analytic division-the Directorate of Intelligence-and
then Deputy Director of the CIA under William Casey in the 1980s.
These were the years of Iran-Contra and the determined Reagan
administration effort to shake off the so-called Vietnam Syndrome
national reluctance to plunge into further overseas military
adventures by rekindling the Soviet menace.
Gates was a more than willing
assistant to Casey in that endeavor. The fact that the CIA was
later embarrassed by its failure to consider, let alone predict,
the collapse of the Soviet Union by the end of the 1980s, was,
critics like CIA senior analyst Melvin Goodman and the very experienced
and respected National Intelligence Officer at Large, Harold
Ford, charged during the 1991 confirmation hearings which narrowly
approved Gates as DCI, was due to the suppression by Gates of
solid intelligence analysis showing the rapid decline of not
only Soviet power but of the validity of its political system.
Another Agency witness against Gates during those hearings was
the last CIA station chief in Saigon, the veteran Thomas Polgar
who delivered his unqualified opinion that a man as dishonest
as he believed Gates was could not and should not serve as DCI.
Indeed, as retired CIA senior
analyst, Ray McGovern, who once supervised the fledgling Soviet
analyst Gates during the latter's early years in the Agency,
believes it was during the Casey-Gates era of the 1980s and 90's
that the US intelligence process-never really free from political
influence during its history-essentially abandoned any real commitment
to professional objectivity and became completely politicized.
It was, claim McGovern and Goodman, the senior intelligence managers
who rose to the top during Gates' time as director who willingly
cooperated with the neocons placed in the special intelligence
offices established in Rumsfeld's and Vice-President Richard
Cheney's offices in cooking the "intelligence" used
to rationalize the 2002 decision to invade Iraq.
Thus, they argue against the
Gates nomination, in terms reminiscent of the extraordinary 1991
hearings where Gates' denials of having knowledge of both the
arms for hostages dealings with Iran or the provisioning of the
Iraq armed forces during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s were
sarcastically described by Harold Ford as "clever."
Indeed, Iran-contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh had only
reluctantly concluded that the evidence of deliberately misleading
his investigators he had against Gates was insufficient to charge
him. Nor is it entirely forgotten that in the uproar over Iran-Contra
and after the 1985 death of DCI William Casey, the Reagan administration
had to withdraw Gates's first nomination to the DCI post. He
was then much too hot to handle.
Needless to say, such views
are not shared by the current President Bush. Nor, were they
those of his father who, as was his wont, delighted in pushing
the appointments of those he saw as loyal to him, despite, or,
indeed, because of, their controversial nature. Both Bushes,
by the way, have entrusted their presidential papers to the custody
of Texas A&M of which, as noted, Gates is president. Bush
II is hoping that the confirmation process of the man he describes
as deserving of the secretaryship will go smoothly during the
lame duck congress and not be delayed until the new, Democratic
congress takes over in January.
It seems reasonable to expect
that the forthcoming hearing on the Gates nomination will not
take place until after Thanksgiving and that they will serve
to introduce the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton Commission
on which Gates serves. Certainly, questions about those recommendations
will be central to the hearings.
There certainly will be strong
Democratic opposition to Gates' confirmation. California's senior
senator, Democrat Dianne Feinstein, has already announced that
she will not vote for him. Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan,
a longtime foe of Gates going back to 1991, will certainly ask
difficult questions but has indicated that he has an open mind
on the nomination. Odds are, though, that after what should
be an ugly hearing in which the scabs from many old wounds will
be torn off, the Senate Armed Services Committee will recommend
approval, and the still Republican-dominated Senate will vote
that Gates be appointed.
The Democrats, of course, will
demand, and get, something in return for their acquiescence.
Most likely the bone thrown to them will be John Bolton, current
interim holder of the post of US Ambassador to the United Nations.
The to say the least controversial Bolton who has been leading
the US charge against Iran at the UN will get only half-hearted
and formal backing from the White House for either confirming
or somehow extending his appointment. This will not be enough
to keep him in his post, a denoument that the vast majority of
the ambassadors to the UN will welcome with great relief.
Incidentally, if the 1991 hearings
are any indication the floor vote on Gates will be far from unanimous.
At that time 31 senators voted against Gates as DCI, an unsurpassed
record for opposition to a committee-approved candidate for that
post.
Assuming that Gates is approved,
he will be, like the rest of the Bush administration in lame
duck status. Assuming, further, that during 2007 and 2008, per
the anticipated Bush-Hamilton recommendations and the pressure
of a Democrat-controlled Congress, the Iraq "course"
is changed and a process of US military withdrawal is carried
out, it will be Gates who will preside over that. In a sense,
Gates will be in something like the position of his 1993 successor
as DCI, James Woolsey. Woolsey, as a staunch conservative (even
an embryonic neocon) was known as the Republicans' favorite Democrat.
His job, in the Clinton administration, was to carry out the
reduction in size, budget, and mission of the post-Cold War intelligence
establishment which, albeit reluctantly, he obediently did.
We can expect, or at least,
allow for the possibility, that Gates, as Secretary of Defense,
will be in charge of pruning back some of the more extravagant
activities and pretensions of the Pentagon in a post-Iraq War
era and that he is prepared to suffer the slings and arrows that
the disappointed neocons, or neocrazies, who had relied on Rumsfeld
to advance their project for US world empire or, at least, hegemony
will fire at him as he does what his political masters have now
agreed is necessary.
David MacMichael, Ph.D. is an ex-Marine Corps captain retired
on disability due to Korean War wounds. A former assistant professor
of history at the University of Oregon he spent the years 1965
to 1969 in Thailand as a Defense Department consultant on counter-insurgency.
From 1981 to 1983 he was a senior estimates officer at the CIA.
After leaving he became an outspoken critic of CIA covert actions.
Currently, MacMichael is on the steering committee of Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
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