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Robert Gates: The Greatest Threat to National Security Today, Is Washington
16 January 2014
(EIRNS)—Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates is continuing his book tour, attacking the war policies of both the Bush and Obama Administrations, and of Congress as well. And, as Lyndon LaRouche commented today, he is being truthful, which could help give some guts where it is needed, for example, in the U.S. Senate, where it is in short supply. Gates’s effort, LaRouche added, could be a keystone element to a revival of the drive to get Obama out of office, especially now that the majority of the population is aware of what a deep failure he is. In an interview on Fox News today, Gates said that he didn’t wait to write the book until Obama is out of office, because "as we look at Syria, we look at Iran, China, Russia, I’ve worked for eight Presidents, and I think I have a perspective on how to deal with these problems that I brought to those Presidents," adding, "And because those debates and issues are still before us, I wanted to put my views on the table." Gates said that "waiting to write those things in 2017, struck me, it would just make everything irrelevant." Asked if he hopes that Obama and his staff will change their ways, Gates responded that he "would like to see less micro management from the White House," but Gates didn’t stop there, going on to declare that, "as much as anything, it is a message to the Congress, as well, about how damaging their approach and the way they are conducting their business, is to the national security of the United States." "And people ask me, ’What’s the greatest threat to American national security today?’ Gates continued. "And I say: It’s encompassed within the two square miles that involve the Capitol and the White House." In an earlier interview this morning on the MSNBC’s "Morning Joe," host Joe Scarborough commented that, at first, Gates’s book looked like a negative, tell-all book about Obama, but that ended up not being the case. When Scarborough asked Gates why did he write the book, Gates answered: "Well, first of all, there are a lot of contemporary issues that are addressed in the book, both at the end, but also threaded throughout, in terms of when do you use military force? What are the criteria? What are your goals? What are the consequences? What are your assumptions? We, for example, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, we made the assumptions that both wars would be short: a grievously wrong assumption. And I make the point in there, that that’s an assumption often made when you launch military forces. "So that has relevance as you look at Syria, as you look at potentially using force against Iran, if the negotiations don’t work. It was part of the considerations when we were deciding to intervene in Libya. And so what I’ve tried to do is write a book that shows and humanizes, by bringing the personalities of the people into it, how Presidents wrestle with these questions of peace and war, the passion that comes to the table." Gates said his first big disagreements with Obama were how to handle Egypt, and whether to intervene in Libya. On Afghanistan, Gates said that "I thought our original goals were a fantasy, they were so ambitious." Gates made it clear he was referring to both Bush and Obama. [DNS/EWS] |