Gates reopens old wounds in Washington

[cal04]

FOR the second time in his extensive bureaucratic career, Robert Gates, the newly nominated US secretary of defence, seems likely to survive an accelerated confirmation process that might otherwise have focused on long-standing allegations that he has sacrificed principles to please his political masters.

Both Republican and Democratic leaders indicated last week that the pressing demands of the Iraq war and the need for decisive American leadership would avert a lengthy political row over Gates’s suitability as a replacement for Donald Rumsfeld, who quit last week following the Republicans’ drubbing in the mid-term elections.

Yet at least one senior Democratic senator, Dianne Feinstein of California, promised “difficult questions” when Gates appears before the Senate’s armed services committee for a grilling he must survive in order to move into Rumsfeld’s spacious Pentagon office.

Carl Levin, a Democratic senator for Michigan who voted against Gates when he was nominated to head the CIA in 1991, said old issues concerning the politicisation of intelligence were “relevant” and deserved a new airing.


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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2449836,00.html

[flordehinojos]

1. Feinstein's "difficult questions" ... what a cackle...she may ask the "difficult questions" but then

she gives them a pass based on one rationalization or another.

[UTUSN]

2. A personal history of politicizing/cherrypicking intel---he'll FIT RIGHT IN!!!1 n/t

[Snotcicles]

3. Gary Hart is a much better choice in my opinion.n/t

[gordianot]

4. Wonder why Biden is willing to vote for him now? What changed?

[John Q. Citizen]

5. What about General Clark? He'd be my choice.

[cassiepriam]

6. Please tell me Dems not going to still be spineless???

NO ON GATES.