Robert Gates

By
Melvin A. Goodman                                                         Read Spanish Version 

From
The Public Record

In
1985, President Ronald Reagan nominated Robert Gates to be director
of central intelligence (DCI), but he was denied confirmation because
a majority of members on the Senate intelligence committee believed
he was lying about his knowledge and role in Iran-contra. The
independent counsel for Iran-contra, Lawrence Walsh, “found
insufficient evidence to warrant charging Gates with a crime,” but
he established that Gates knew early on about Oliver North’s
illegal support for the Contras and the illegal diversion of funds. 

In
1991, Gates survived the confirmation process to become DCI despite
the opposition of more than 30 senators who believed that his remarks
were scripted and that he was not candid in discussing his role in
the politicization of intelligence on the Soviet Union, Central
America, and Southwest Asia. In his memoir in 1996, Gates says
nothing about the CIA’s exaggeration of Soviet military forces,
although he spent a great deal of his working life at the CIA
tailoring national intelligence estimates on Soviet military
capability and intentions. And today, Gates is lying about the
Iraq War, arguing that an intelligence failure was the reason for the
Bush administration’s decision to launch a preemptive attack
against Iraq.

Gates
told
PBS’s Tavis Smiley
that the United States will be more cautious about launching another
preemptive attack because of the intelligence failures of the Iraq
War. But the role of the White House and the CIA in distorting
the intelligence on Iraq had nothing to do with the decision to go to
war. The Bush administration relied on phony intelligence to
create and employ a strategic disinformation campaign to convince the
Congress, the media, and the American people of the need for war.

President
Bush wanted the war to establish himself as a genuine
commander-in-chief; Vice President Dick Cheney wanted the war to
create a more powerful presidency; Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld wanted the war to make his case for transforming the
military into a smaller and more mobile force; National Security
Advisor Condi Rice wanted the war because the old boy network favored
it. Sadly, Secretary of State Powell knew that going to war made
no sense, but he unwisely made the phony case for war at the United
Nations because he wanted to be seen as a team player. And now
Gates, who owes all of his success to the Bush family, is helping
George W. Bush make the case that faulty intelligence was responsible
for the Iraq War.

There
are lessons to be learned about the Iraq War, but the role of faulty
intelligence in the declaration of a preemptive attack is not one of
them. The Congress must learn that it needs to rebuild its
legitimacy and credibility, which was lost on its way to authorizing
force against Iraq.  The professional military must learn that
it cannot be an accomplice in presidential deception, which should
have been the lesson from the Vietnam War. 

The
Joint Chiefs of Staff never challenged the presidential lies during
the tragic buildup in Vietnam or the run-up to the Iraq War. The
mainstream media must learn to challenge conventional wisdom and to
examine the arguments of the contrarians, who were right about
Vietnam and Iraq. Judith Miller of the New York Times was not
the only victim of the disinformation of the Bush administration;
Walter Pincus of the Washington Post and Michael Gordon of the Times
should have been skeptical of the information they were given. 

The
major task of the press is to hold any administration’s feet to the
fire in regard to duplicity.

The
American people must also learn to be more skeptical in times of
crisis, when presidents often engage in deception to make the case
for war. James Polk did so before the Mexican-American War;
William McKinley did so before the Spanish-American War; Lyndon
Johnson did so to support the buildup in the Vietnam War. The
Congress, the military, the media, and the public must understand the
importance of loyal dissent, particularly in wartime.

President
Barack Obama blundered badly when he decided to retain Robert Gates
as secretary of defense. Obama genuinely believes in change in
international security. In his inaugural address, he emphasized that
“our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do
what we please.” He argued that the “world has changed, and we
must change with it.” Secretary of Defense Gates, on the other
hand, has traditional notions on the importance of post-Cold War
military supremacy. 

He
believes that American military policy and the weapons we bought to
defend ourselves won the Cold War against the Soviet Union. In his
memoir, he described the Cold War as a prizefight in which a sudden
flurry of hooks and jabs put the big guy down for the count. Obama
has questioned the need for the policies of the Bush administration
that Gates favors, including the deployment of a national missile
defense at home; a ballistic-missile defense system in East Europe;
NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine; and the abrogation of the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. 

These
policies are responsible in part for the isolation of the United
States from the international community. Real change requires an end
to the superpower notions of unquestioned military superiority and
militarization of national security policy.

At
a crucial time in the discussion of strategic policy in Afghanistan,
where additional troops will not reverse the steady deterioration
there, it is essential that the Congress, the media, and the military
also recognize the limits of power against the Taliban and recognize
the need to study the case for withdrawal from Afghanistan. We must
learn from the mistakes of the misuse of power, which occurred in
Cuba, Vietnam, and Iraq. We all know the words of naval commander
Stephen Decatur regarding “our country, right or wrong.”

But
we must never forget the words of Carl Schurz, a major general in the
Union Army and then a senator, who said “Our country, right or
wrong. When right, it ought be kept right; when wrong, to be put
right.”

Melvin
A. Goodman is senior fellow at the Center
for International Policy
and adjunct professor of government at Johns Hopkins University. He
spent more than 42 years in the U.S. Army, the Central Intelligence
Agency, and the Department of Defense. His most recent book is
“Failure
of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA.”

http://www.pubrecord.org/commentary/751-robert-gatess-big-lie-on-the-iraq-war.html