Gates: US Not Winning Iraq War

Bush's new nominee for Secretary of Defence Robert Gates admitted the obvious that few Republicans dare speak of during his confirmation hearing on Tuesday and it was not the Rumsfeldian type of Good News™ that warmongering idealogues like to hear:

“We are not winning the war in Iraq, is that correct?” Mr. McCain asked.

“That is my view, yes, senator,” Mr. Gates replied, adding shortly afterward that the that the United States is not losing the war either.

It's like a little league game apparently - even when you lose, you win.

And via WaPo:

Asked by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, whether "you believe we're currently winning in Iraq," Gates answered, "No, sir.

CNN's Pentagon reporter Barbara Star reacted to Gates' admission by wondering aloud how it might affect the troops on the ground to hear that their next boss doesn't think that the US isn't winning. Well, I think many of them already know that and lying to them continually as Bush and Rumsfeld have isn't exactly a morale booster either.

When he was asked if Iraq was in a state of civil war, Gates danced all around the question and after stating that 'most of the bads guys in the Middle East' are in Iraq, he said he doesn't know 'how you describe that'. How about 'hell'?

Ray McGovern has more on Gates' history and why his confirmation should be carefully scrutinized:

The Armed Services Committee's ranking member, Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who voted against Gates' nomination in 1991 to be director of the CIA, said he wanted to give Gates a "fresh look; a lot of time has passed." Well, highly damaging evidence has come to light since 1991, implicating Gates in some of the most serious national-security scandals of the 1980s. Veteran investigative reporter Robert Parry, for one, has been providing chapter and verse on ConsortiumNews.com.

For example, in January 1995, Howard Teicher, who served on President Reagan's National Security Council staff, submitted a sworn affidavit detailing the activities of Gates and his then-boss, CIA Director William Casey, in secretly providing arms to Iraq. This violated the Arms Export Control Act in two ways: ignoring the requirement to notify Congress; and providing arms to a state designated as a sponsor of terrorism.

It gets worse. To grease the skids for a similar adventure involving weapons to Iran, Gates ordered his more malleable subordinates at the CIA to cook up intelligence reports to provide some comfort to Reagan in acquiescing to these activities. A National Intelligence Estimate of May 1985 predicted Soviet inroads in Iran if the United States did not reach out to "moderates" within the Iranian leadership.

In addition, Gates' analysts were pressed to publish several reports beginning in late 1985 – as HAWK anti-aircraft missiles wended their way to Tehran – that Iranian-sponsored terrorism had "dropped off substantially." There was no persuasive evidence to support that judgment.

As part of my official duties at the time, I took steps to make Gates aware of this a month before he wrote in articles in the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs magazine, and our professional journal Studies in Intelligence that, "No CIA publication asserted these things." I then tried in vain to get him to correct the record.

As McGovern wrote, the 'anybody but Rumsfeld' mood plays to Gates' advantage but that doesn't mean his nomination should be rubber-stamped.

It is difficult to believe that senators have become so used to being diddled by administration officials and nominees that they shy away from looking seriously into such matters. After the brutal nomination hearings in 1991, then-Sen. Tom Daschle addressed the $64,000 question – "Whether Gates might continue to trim the truth" – and insisted: "We cannot afford to take that chance."

These hearings could have been delayed until the Democrats are in charge in January. There is an acting Secretary of Defence who certainly can't possibly mess things up any more than they already have been by Rumsfeld but it seems like the Democrats have decided to acquiesce to give Bush the secretary he wants. The least they can do at this point is to ensure that everything about Gates' history is placed on the table for all to see.

If you're interested in watching or listening to Gates' hearing, tune into CSPAN3.