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By Kenneth J. Theisen, 11/9/06

Robert Gates, the nominee to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, is widely respected in ruling circles and is an old friend of the Bush family.  This should immediately give pause to any who harbor illusions that the "fresh perspective" offered by the Bush regime will include a withdrawal from the Iraq war.  Let there be no doubt, the regime is still committed to victory in Iraq.  Winning the war will be Gate's task.

Just who is Robert Gates? Aside from a couple years spent in the U.S. Air Force where, among other duties, he provided intelligence briefings to ICBM missile crews, he spent most of his life working for the CIA, including as the CIA Director from 1991 to 1993 under George H.W. Bush. His most recent job was as the President of Texas A&M University, the home of the first Bush's Presidential library. But he was not just an academic.  He is a current member of the high-level Iraq Study Group (ISG) chaired by another Bush family friend, James Baker. (Yes, the same Baker that helped steal the 2000 election.) 

The ISG is reviewing U.S. policy in Iraq and is widely expected to recommend changes in that policy in the near future.  What those changes are is still unclear, but they are expected to include more diplomacy with regional powers, closer cooperation with allies, the offering of possible incentives to insurgent groups, and perhaps more troops and more equipment for U.S. troops. They may also include some redeployment of U.S. forces within the Middle East.

Gates has a difficult job.  He will need to implement a transition in Iraq policy without exposing the fact that the present policy is an unmitigated failure for the Bush regime. And he is still expected to win the war.

Two year ago, Gates co-chaired another Task Force on Iran which created a report, "IRAN: TIME FOR A NEW APPROACH."  The report was critical of the Bush regime's failure to engage in talks with Iran over it nuclear programs and also its inability to get Iran's cooperation in stabilizing the region, including cooperation from Iran in Iraq.  Gates may now have ideas of a forging a diplomatic approach to Iran to get help in the Iraq war particularly with the Shia community.  Iran has close ties to the Shia community in Iraq and has funded several of the Shia Iraqi leaders.

Gates was first nominated as CIA director in 1987 by Ronald Reagan. But his nomination was withdrawn because he was implicated in the Iran Contra Scandal.  This 1986 scandal involved selling weapons to Iran and then using the profits to support the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.  Both actions violated the law.  Several Reagan officials were convicted in this scandal, but Gates was not among them as most witnesses refused to testify and the Independent Counsel did not think it could bring charges without such testimony.

Gates had lapses of memory when he testified and claimed he knew nothing about the arms sales or money transfers.  (How this lack of knowledge makes him a candidate for the head of intelligence is curious.)  One witness, senior CIA analyst Charles Allen testified that he wrote a memo on September 9, 1986 on the arms sales to Iran, a copy of which went to Mr. Gates.  He also claims to have talked to Mr. Gates regarding shipments of arms to Iran.  Mr. Gates was unable to recall the conversation or receiving the memo.

But the official report of the Independent Counsel on the Iran Contra scandal is revealing.  It states, "Robert M. Gates was the Central Intelligence Agency's deputy director for intelligence (DDI) from 1982 to 1986.  He was confirmed as the CIA's deputy director of central intelligence (DDCI) in April of 1986 and became acting director of central intelligence in December of that same year.  Owing to his senior status in the CIA, Gates was close to many figures who played significant roles in the Iran/Contra affair and was in a position to have known of their activities."
He was also alleged to have passed U.S. intelligence to Iraq and helping the Iraqi military get weapons during the Iran-Iraq War.  During the war, the Reagan administration provided crucial intelligence to Saddam Hussein so that Iraq would not be defeated by Iran.  Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Iranians died in this war.  The U.S. helped both sides in a strategy of letting them "bleed each other dry."

In an affidavit by former Reagan administration official Howard Teicher that was filed in connection with a criminal trial in Miami in 1995 Teicher revealed the covert U.S.-Iraq relationship.  Teicher, a member of Reagan's National Security Council staff, declared, "In June 1982, President Reagan decided that the United States could not afford to allow Iraq to lose the war to Iran."  Teicher said he helped draft a secret national security decision directive that Reagan signed to authorize covert U.S. assistance to Saddam Hussein's military.  "The CIA, including both CIA Director Casey and Deputy Director Gates, knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to Iraq," Teicher wrote.

Robert Gates' loyalty was finally rewarded when he got the CIA Director job in 1991.  He also served as Deputy Head of the National Security Council (NSC) under Brent Snowcroft, who has been highly critical of the Bush regime's Iraq policy since before the war.  He spent a total of nine years on the NSC under 4 presidents.  After 9/11 George W. Bush asked Gates to be the first Director of National Intelligence, but Gates declined.

Gates has also repeatedly been charged with "cooking intelligence" to please his superiors. At the time of his 1991 nomination as CIA Director, former senior Soviet analyst and CIA Division Chief, Mel Goodman, testified on how Gates had shaped intelligence analysis to satisfy his masters and advance his career. Goodman was joined at once by other CIA analysts who put their own careers at risk by testifying against Gates' nomination. 31 Senators found the evidence against Gates so persuasive that they voted "No" when the nomination came to the Senate floor.

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