Is Secretary of Defense Gates Out Of The Iraq Policy-Making Loop?
President George Bush wants $50 billion more for the Iraq war and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reportedly did not even know about it.
This suggests some possibilities:
(1) Policy is being made by Bush and a very small group of people. And the link above also notes that the military is NOT solidly backing the Bush administration on Iraq anymore — because they fear the military could eventually be made scapegoats for Bush’s decisions. This is NOT the first time this theory has surfaced. It has occasionally popped up in written pieces or on some of the talk heads discuss-wink-and-nod Washington insiders talk shows on television.
(2) Gates is perhaps not totally trusted because he was a firm backer of the Iraq Study Group which Bush essentially brushed aside.
(3) Gates is perhaps not totally in the loop because he is actually considered more of a bigwig linked to Bush 41 than to Bush 43 and some key backers of the first President George Bush are not fans of the style, policies or policy making process of the current Bush administration.
8 Responses to “Is Secretary of Defense Gates Out Of The Iraq Policy-Making Loop?”
Have you seen this?
Bush won’t listen to reason, nor tactics, nor veteran policymakers. He is Pinocchio, Peter Pan and Alfred E Neuman all rolled into one, hoping one day history will make him a real President.
False hope , because he doesn’t believe in faeries, not even blue ones.
O, why does Marine Gen. Pace hate America?
Entropy, there was a post here a few days back exactly quoting that article. I then added a link to Odiemo’s quote on, effectively, the “surge level” ends in April which preceded Pace’s quote.
And while neither quote gave attribution to your worldwide brigade deployment math posted awhile back, I assume all three things are making reference to the same unalterable fact……..we don’t have the troops to maintain 150K beyond this current rotation.
On the flip side of this coin, everyone here knows that Bush will not drawdown in advance of that natural April expiry date, nor will Collins, Sununu et al break ranks to allow anything earlier from the Dems.
Notwithstanding these relatively incontrovertable facts, how much do you want to bet that TMV spends the next 7 months making posts about “when will this !@#$%^&&* surge be ended?”
Finally admitting that, eh? It good to see that some on the conservative side have noticed that Bush if bull-headed about policy to a fault.
I’ll go you one better, Rambie.
Give me my 2000 and 2004 votes back and revised ballots that has a six year old kid on it……and I’ll vote for the six year old kid.
It would not be because of obstinism (sp?) per se, but because the kid would undoubtedly be able to communicate better and think through problems better.
CO, I just reread my post and it could come off as being obtuse or at least snarky. I’m glad you took it in the manner it was intended .and not as a offense to you.
I don’t know, some think President Bush is listening too much to his handlers, or at least, to the wrong handlers. The same could happen to a six year old too.
In some respects he’s right, history (mostly time) will temper the feelings about him to some extent. But I doubt it’d raise his reputation to the level he’d like to be associated with.
That’s all true, but dipping to 100k or below would represent more than just the necessary decrease inherent in the temporary surge.
Frankly, the Army is broken and it appears that the senior Army leadership is finally recognizing that fact, or are at least willing to tell the President that the Army can no longer implement his policy. There’s also a concern, naturally, of what may happen if our broken Army is needed for a necessary war – I know this has been a concern in the military leadership for some time – with all our ground force “eggs” in the baskets of Iraq and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan, our ability to respond and deter crises elsewhere is diminished.