The man who’ll replace Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld opposed invading Iraq in 2003 and had once rejected President Bush’s offer to be the nation’s first national intelligence director.
But this time, the day after American voters indicated a need for change, with the three-year Iraq war drifting into chaos and 104 U.S. soldiers killed last month, Robert Gates, the former CIA director, agreed to a second Bush offer and replace Rumsfeld as the top civilian at the Pentagon. His nomination must be confirmed by the Senate.
“The secretary of defense must be a man of vision who can see threats still over the horizon and prepare our nation to meet them,” Bush said. “Bob Gates is the right man to meet both of these critical challenges.”
Gates, 63, the intelligence chief and security adviser to the president’s father, said Wednesday that he agreed to take the job because he believes the outcome of the Iraq war will shape the world for decades to come.
“Because so many of America’s sons and daughters in our armed forces are in harm’s way, I did not hesitate when the president asked me to return to duty,” Gates said.
Gates, president of Texas A&M University, visited Iraq in September as a member of the 10-person Iraq Study Group to evaluate the situation for Bush. The bipartisan ISG, headed by former Secretary of State James Baker, is expected to release its recommendations on the Iraq crisis before February.
Gates has served six presidents from both political parties and rose from an entry-level employee in the CIA to become the director of central intelligence. Gates ran the CIA under the first President Bush during the first Gulf war.
Though Gates has strong ties with the Bush family, he has not always agreed with the current president’s plans in the Middle East. In 2003, two months before the war, Gates questioned the wisdom of invading Iraq while the nation was facing a long struggle against dangerous terrorists, according to The Houston Chronicle. The war, he warned, would tie up tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq for years.
In 2004, Gates co-chaired a task force with President Carter’s security chief sponsored by the private Council on Foreign Relations that called on the White House to open a broad dialogue with Iran, rather than waiting until the nuclear issue was settled.
