"At a press conference in April 2007, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid famously declared “This war is lost,” and that “the surge is not accomplishing anything.” That didn’t sit so well with Gates, who writes that when he heard the comments, he was reminded of a Lincoln quote (which he shared with his staff): “Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged.” Ouch. He also wasn’t exactly enamored with the idea that the calls he received from Reid had to do with Air Force objections to wind farms in Nevada, and Reid pushing him to spend DoD money on irritable-bowel-syndrome research. Gates writes, “I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.” It wasn’t the last time he would laugh about Reid. Gates writes that Reid called him during the 2008 campaign to ask some questions of Gates as a potential vice-presidential candidate."
"Later, Gates went to breakfast with then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi days after she said “The president’s strategy in Iraq has failed,” and “The choice is between a Democratic plan for responsible redeployment and the president’s plan for an endless war in Iraq.” Gates argued with her that President Bush and Gen. David Petraeus had enacted a change of mission and a “sustainable path forward,” but according to him, she did not care. This led Gates to surmise that, “after all, one wouldn’t want facts and reality—not to mention national interest—to intrude upon partisan politics, would one?” Later, Pelosi is briefed on the timetable for drawdowns in Iraq, during which she was informed that roughly 50,000 troops would remain in Iraq through 2011. Gates describes that she “alternately looked like she had swallowed an entire lemon and like she was simply going to explode.”
Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War
10 comments:
The day Harry said those words was the day Harry Reid became an enemy of the US.
F* Harry Ried. Really, Nevada..? What the hell is wrong with you people?
Ah - I think he won the election thru fraud. He's a walking talking fraud of a little man.
Harry and Nancy stabbed our fighters in the field in the back. But at least they made up for it with Obamacare.
"Gates describes that she... [Nancy Pelosi] “alternately looked like she had swallowed an entire lemon and like she was simply going to explode.” "
Doesn't she looks like that most of the time? Especially when the botox wears off.
Gates was known as The Survivor in his CIA days because he always told the brass what he figured they wanted to hear.
Given that and the fact that supposedly we're all socialists now, it would either appear Gates is either speaking his own mind or he knows something the media doesn't want us to know.
I will never understand Gates' removal of USMC General Peter Pace as Chairman of the JCS (for a normal 2nd term) to replace him with an Admiral to oversee two land wars, and without direct combat experience at either.
My understanding of that action was that it was political to avoid a confirmation debate. So who is he to criticize others for political motivations?
If his book explains a sensible reason for that action,( I'd love to be wrong) somebody tell me and then I might buy it.
At one point or another everyone in the world was wrong about Iraq. It does seem that false Republican predictions get more air play than those of their Democratic counterparts.
I'm not real comfortable with Gates. He's just another layer of the onion.
What's the overriding theme of Gates's book?
Is it "I love America and here's how these politicians are destroying it."
Or is it "I knew what to do and these idiots wouldn't do it my way"?
Big difference in tone.
Aridog spotlights a little-known (in the civilian world) part of Gates' past. Many at both Texas A&M and the CIA thought him to be a bureaucratically devious SOB amoeba not to be trusted. And much of the milblogging community--both retired and active duty types--had serious concerns when he was SECDEF.
PS: Had a terrible thought. God forbid anyone thinking I'm suggesting he's worse than Obama..
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