WASHINGTON (AP) - Robert Gates, the White House choice to be the next defense secretary, conceded Tuesday that the United States is not winning the war in Iraq and warned that if that country is not stabilized in the next year or two it could lead to a "regional conflagration."
At the outset of his Senate confirmation hearing, Gates said he is open to new ideas about correcting the U.S. course in Iraq, which he said would be his highest priority if confirmed as expected.
Gates, 63, said he believes President Bush wants to see Iraq improve to the point where it can govern and defend itself, while seeking a new approach. "What we are now doing is not satisfactory," Gates said.
"In my view, all options are on the table, in terms of how we address this problem in Iraq," he added.
Asked point-blank by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., whether the U.S. is winning in Iraq, Gates replied, "No, sir." He later said he believes the United States is neither winning nor losing, "at this point."
Gates was noncommittal on questions about whether and when to begin a U.S. troop withdrawal.
"It depends on the conditions on the ground under which troops were withdrawn," he said, adding that he was not yet knowledgeable enough about conditions in Iraq to offer an opinion on how a troop withdrawal would affect the sectarian violence. He said that if confirmed, he would go to Iraq soon to consult with U.S. commanders on this and other complex questions about the way forward.
Asked later whether announcing a specific troop withdrawal timetable would send a signal of U.S. weakness, Gates said it "would essentially tell (the insurgents) how long they have to wait until we're gone."
Much of the hearing's questioning focused on whether Gates would provide independent advice to Bush, and the former CIA director assured the committee that he would not shirk from that duty.
 | | (AP) Defense Secretary-designate Robert Gates, President Bush's choice to replace Donald Rumsfeld, walks... |
|
|
He said he did not give up his position as president of Texas A&M University and return to Washington to "be a bump on a log." Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a likely 2008 presidential candidate and an advocate of increasing U.S. troop strength in Iraq, asked whether Gates believes the U.S. had too few troops at the outset of the war in 2003.
"I suspect in hindsight some of the folks in the administration would not make the same decisions they made," including the number of troops in Iraq to establish control after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime, Gates said.
He also told Levin he believes a political solution in Iraq is required to end the violence.
The confirmation hearing came amid intensifying pressure on Bush to take a new approach in Iraq, reflecting the outcome of the Nov. 7 elections that put Democrats back in control of both houses of Congress. Democrats and some Republicans have pressed Bush to begin withdrawing some of the 140,000 U.S. troops.
 | | (AP) Defense Secretary-designate Robert Gates, President Bush's choice to replace Donald Rumsfeld, back... |
|
|
U.S. deaths in Iraq are approaching 2,900 and a relentless insurgency and escalating sectarian violence are raising questions about whether Iraq will devolve into all-out civil war, and whether Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government can ever be effective. "Our course over the next year or two will determine whether the American and Iraqi people and the next president of the United States will face a slowly but steadily improving situation in Iraq and in the region or will face the very real risk, and possible reality, of a regional conflagration," Gates said.
Bush has repeatedly rejected the idea of a quick U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and said he wants to keep U.S. forces there until Iraq is able to govern and defend itself without being a haven for terrorists.
"It seems to me that the United States is going to have to have some kind of presence in Iraq for a long time ... but it could be with a dramatically smaller number of U.S. forces than are there today," Gates said.
He said his biggest worry on Iraq is that if U.S. forces departed while the country was in chaos, then predominantly Sunni Arab countries in the region like Saudi Arabia and Turkey would intervene, further complicating the sectarian strife there.
 | | (AP) Defense Secretary-designate Robert Gates, President Bush's choice to replace Donald Rumsfeld,... |
|
|
Meanwhile, Bush was getting an in-person preview Tuesday of a prestigious blue-ribbon panel's recommendations for a new way forward in Iraq Press secretary Tony Snow said, however, that in giving the briefing, commission chairman James A. Baker III was not leaving behind the full report or getting into too many specifics. That is to happen Wednesday, Snow said.
Gates, who served on the commission until his nomination was announced by Bush on Nov. 8, said he did not know what the panel would recommend.
"It's my impression that frankly there are no new ideas on Iraq," he said. "The list of tactics, the list of strategies, the list of approaches is pretty much out there" in the public debate, he added. "The question is, is there a way to put pieces of those different proposals together" in a new way?
The White House sought to dampen expectations about the commission's long-awaited recommendations, expected to include calls for the U.S. to increase cooperation with rivals Iran and Syria and to begin withdrawing combat brigades from Iraq. The president has resisted both ideas.
"Everybody seems to look at the Baker-Hamilton commission as a rebuff to the White House, and we don't look at it that way," Snow said. "If you're looking for a heavyweight battle, you're picking the wrong issue."
There has been little sign that Democrats, poised to take control of Congress in January, will block Gates, and a vote by the full Senate is expected by Friday.
Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., asked Gates his view on the wisdom of attacking either Syria or Iran, both of which have been accused by the administration of hurting U.S. interests in Iraq. Gates said he would not advocate attacking either Syria or Iran under current circumstances.
Addressing the problem of capturing or killing Osama bin Laden, who is believed to be hiding in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area, Gates said it is important to keep bin Laden "on the run." It is particularly difficult to obtain reliable and timely intelligence on bin Laden's movements, he added.
"The way we'll catch bin Laden eventually, in my view, is that just as in the case of Saddam Hussein, one of his people will turn him in," Gates said.
