Friday, November 10, 2006
Who is Mr. Gates? Part II
Rumsfeld Dumped, Bush Suggests a Spook
Wednesday November 08th 2006, 3:37 pm
It is all smoke and mirrors, as usual.
"Robert Gates, the 63-year-old career intelligence officer chosen to replace Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon, takes over with the clearest of missions: get American troops out of Iraq as quickly and cleanly as possible," reports the Times Online.
In fact, this is not the "clearest of missions," as Congress, increasingly under the control of the Democrat side of the Property Party equation, has not explicitly declared it plans to leave Iraq in the near future, fearing the connotation it has "cut and run" once again, this time allowing "al-Qaeda," as Bush said during his press conference earlier today, to inundate Iraq and use it as a base of operations, never mind the Iraqi resistance is likely to resist "al-Qaeda" jihadists as a foreign contagion, and also never mind "al-Qaeda" is essentially a creation of American, Pakistani, and British intelligence.
Appointing Robert Gates to run the Pentagon is a natural, as Gates spent 26 years in the CIA and the National Security Council and was the director of the agency under Bush Senior, who is, of course, a former duke of the spooks in the Ford administration.
Gates' curriculum vitae is a near perfect match, as he was neck deep in Iran-Contra and is nothing short of a Bush crime family sycophant. Gates was, according to Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe, involved in the "October Surprise," the secret agreement between Iran and conniving Republicans, led by Bush Senior, to release the hostages after the November, 4, 1980 elections, thus providing Reagan with election time boasting points.
Ari Ben-Menashe revealed that pressure "on [Menachem] Begin led the Likud leader to throw in his lot with the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980 by helping to arrange meetings between Iranian leaders and senior Republicans. Ben-Menashe has asserted that George H.W. Bush personally participated in a key meeting in October 1980 in Paris, a claim that Bush denied at two press conferences in 1992 but was never questioned about in a formal government investigation," according to Robert Parry.
Although Gates denied firsthand knowledge of Iran arms sales profits illegally diverted to the Contras, evidence demonstrates that he received a report on the diversion during the summer of 1986 from DDI Richard Kerr. "The issue was whether Independent Counsel could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Gates was deliberately not telling the truth when he later claimed not to have remembered any reference to the diversion before meeting with [national intelligence officer Charles E. Allen, neck deep in the muck of the Iran-Contra crimes]" on October 1, 1986, notes Wikipedia.
In 1991, even the CIA's favorite newspaper, the Washington Post, ran an op-ed cautioning against appointing Gates as DCI. "My objections to Gates center on his performance during the Iran-contra affair.... Throughout it, Gates acted as if he was in a complete fog or was interested primarily in keeping the truth from being aired in public or from reaching Congress," wrote Tom Polgar, a onetime colleague at the CIA and a veteran of the OSS (Gates: The Wrong Choice to Head the CIA, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 1-7 Jul. 1991, 24). But then, as George Lardner, Jr. and Walter Pincus wrote a couple weeks later in the same publication, Gates is "A Company Man" (or maybe that should be he is a Bush crime family intimate), so his appointment was a shoo-in.
Naturally, all of this about merging CIA and DIA operations at the expense of the former. "It's no mistake Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden was breezily selected [as director of the CIA, former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence], as predicted, by a large number of senators (78-15 in his favor) earlier today," I wrote on May 26th. "Hayden will merge CIA and Pentagon covert and snoop operations and scant little of the work will concentrate on Osama's cartoonish cave dwellers and the spurious boogieman known as 'al-Qaeda,'" as we know the lion's share of snoop work is directed against the American people, as the NSA's massive surveillance program reveals. It should be fairly obvious that appointing a former CIA director and career spook as the Secretary of Defense rounds out the overall plan.
Finally, although Rumsfeld will go into the good night, the corporate relationships he nurtured will stay in place.
"As for Mr. Rumsfeld's top civilian aides, officials said it was likely that Mr. Gates would seek to retain Gordon England as the deputy defense secretary; Mr. England previously was Navy secretary, and has received high marks managing the day-to-day business of the Pentagon," notes the New York Times.
England is a proponent of "military transformation," that is to say transforming, or rather transferring, military duties to the private sector. He is a former top executive of the death merchant General Dynamics (another Pentagon appointee, James Roche, a Center for Security Policy neocon, worked for Northrop Grumman, and former Secretary of the Army, Thomas E. White, a JINSA walking tour convert, worked as a vice chairman and senior executive for Enron).
So impressed are the Likudites with England, JINSA presented him with a distinguished service award.
In other words, as much as things change, or appear to change, the more they ultimately stay the same, especially with the neocon gang running the show.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
LANDSLIDE! ...a big thanks from Michael Moore
November 8th, 2006
Friends,
You did it! We did it! The impossible has happened: A majority of Americans have soundly and forcefully removed Bush's party from control of the House of Representatives. And, sometime today perhaps, we may learn that the same miracle has happened in the Senate. Whatever the outcome, the American people have made two things crystal clear: End this war, and stop Mr. Bush from doing any more damage to this country we love. That is what this election was about. Nothing else. Just that. And it's a message that has sent shock waves throughout Washington -- and a note of hope around this troubled world.
Now the real work begins. Unless we stay on top of these Democrats to do the right thing, they will do what they've always done: Screw it up. Big Time. They helped Bush start this war, and now they should make amends.
But let's take a day to rejoice and revel in a rare victory for our side -- the side that doesn't believe in unprovoked invasions of other countries. This is your day, my friends. You have worked hard for it. I can't tell you how proud I am to count all of you as part of the greater American mainstream we now occupy. Thank you for all the time you gave this week to get out the vote. Some of you have been at this since the large demonstrations of February 2003 when we tried to stop the war before it started. Only 10-20% of the country agreed with us at that time. Remember how lonely that was? Some people were even booed! Now, 60% of the country agrees with our position. They are us and we are them. What a nice, strange, hopeful feeling.
A woman, for the first time in our history, will be Speaker of the House. The attempt to ban all abortion in the conservative state of South Dakota was defeated. Laws to raise the minimum wage were passed. Democrats were elected to fill Tom DeLay's and Mark Foley's seats. Detroit's John Conyers, Jr. is going to be the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. The Democratic governor of Michigan beat the CEO from Amway. The little township next to where I live in Michigan voted Democratic for the first time since... ever. And on and on and on. The good news will continue throughout today. Let's enjoy it. Savor it. And use it to get Congress to finally listen to the majority.
If you want to do one thing today, send an email or a letter to both of your senators and your member of Congress and tell them, in no uncertain terms, what this election means: End the war -- and don't let George W. Bush get away with any more of his bright ideas.
Congratulations, again! Now let's go find a spine for the Dems to do the job we've sent them there to do.
Yours in victory (for once!),
Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com
P.S. Thanks for all those photos you sent me of you with your brooms at your polling places. They're still coming in and we're posting them here throughout the day. And for those of you who asked how "Sicko" is coming along, the answer is: better than we ever expected! We're hard at work in the edit room and it will be in theaters in June. Thanks again, everyone, for your support.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1382.shtml
Will a shocking new GOP court victory and Karl Rove's attack on Ohio 2006 doom the Democrats nationwide?
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
COLUMBUS -- With a major GOP federal court victory, the Ohio 2006 election has descended into the calculated chaos that has become the trademark of a Karl Rove election theft, and that could help keep the Congress in Republican hands nationwide.
Through a complex series of legal maneuvers, and now a shocking new decision from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the GOP has thrown Ohio's entire process of voting and vote counting into serious disarray. The mess is perfectly designed to suppress voter turnout, make election monitoring and a recount impossible, and allow the Republican Party to emerge with a victory despite overwhelming evidence the electorate wants exactly the opposite.
The disaster in Ohio began immediately after the theft of the presidential election here in 2004. Though the majority of Ohioans are registered Democrats, the gerrymandered state legislature is overwhelmingly Republican. Soon after John Kerry conceded, it passed House Bill 3, a draconian assault on voter registration drives, voting rights and the ability to secure reliable recounts of federal-level elections.
In brief, HB3 stacked a virtually impossible set of requirements onto the voter registration process. As elsewhere nationwide, voting has traditionally involved citizens coming to the polls and signing a poll book. Upon a signature check from a poll worker, a ballot has been given. A similar process has been in effect for absentee ballots. There is no recent evidence this method has encouraged significant voter fraud.
But the GOP's HB3 has imposed a series of draconian requirements for voter ID, including the demand for certain documents very difficult to obtain by many poor, homeless, elderly or other largely Democratic demographic groups.
To further complicate matters, Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, who is now in charge of the same election in which he is the GOP nominee for governor, has added some additional, entirely arbitrary disqualifying factors of his own. Blackwell was the state co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in the 2004 election, which he also ran while making the key decisions that gave Bush-Cheney a second term in the White House.
On all absentee ballots, HB3 demands an identifying driver's license number, or the equivalent. But Ohio driver's licenses have two codes on them. The "correct" one has two letters and six numbers. The "wrong" one is an eleven-number bureaucratic code that appears above the ID photo.
According to preliminary reports, as many as 10 percent of those sending in absentee ballots so far have included the wrong code, thus disqualifying their vote. The process is so confusing that one Republican federal judge, in a court proceeding, has volunteered the fact that he actually put this same "wrong" number on an application for a rental car, temporarily nullifying his contract. Here in Columbus, Board of Elections Director Matt Damschroder estimates that 5,000 ballots would already be disqualified in Franklin County alone.
So far the wave of absentee ballots pouring into the county boards of elections indicate an extraordinary percentage of Ohioans will vote absentee this year. Many are likely hoping to avoid distrusted electronic voting machines, as well as the long, racially-biased lines that tainted the 2004 election.
In response to reports of large numbers of absentee disqualifications, a federal lawsuit has been filed by a Cleveland homeless advocacy group and the Service Employee's International Union. The suit was then deemed to be a related action to the landmark King Lincoln civil rights filing that resulted in a September ruling preserving the ballots from Ohio 2004, and was sent to Judge Algernon Marbley, who made that decision.
Last week Judge Marbley threw out the HB3 drivers license requirement for the absentee ballots. On Wednesday, November 1, he will hold a hearing on whether to void all the HB3 requirements that are poised to disqualify tens of thousands of likely Democratic voters on election day.
Blackwell himself did not appeal Marbley's ruling. He is trailing by as much as 30 points in some Ohio polls. He has been seriously hurt by the widespread belief that he stole the 2004 election, and is reluctant to be openly identified with yet another mass disenfranchisement of Ohio voters.
Instead, Ohio's GOP Attorney General Jim Petro did appeal Marbley's decision. And on Sunday, October 29, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed Marbley's suspension of the driver's license number requirement on the absentee ballots, casting the entire process into deep confusion.
This ruling means that county boards of election that were telling voters they did not have to include the drivers license number on their absentee ballot after Marbley's decision must now resume telling them they must include that number.
The decision sends a strong signal that if Marbley overturns the HB3 voter ID requirements for citizens coming to the polls, that too is likely to be appealed and then overturned by the Court of Appeals.
Indeed, if Marbley throws out the rest of the HB3 after the Wednesday, November 1, hearing, a final ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court on all these procedures may not come until within hours of election time.
In other words, Ohio's lame duck GOP attorney general, and the GOP-dominated federal court system, are now in the process of pitching the entire electoral process in the state of Ohio into a spiral of chaos.
HB3 and Blackwell's arbitrary directives have already devastated Democratic voter registration drives and caused thousands of mostly Democratic potential voters to wonder about their true eligibility to cast a ballot on November 7.
The mainstream media is portraying this latest episode as a blood feud between Petro and Blackwell. But the real winner is the Bush White House, which has every reason to suppress the vote November 7.
Blackwell is trailing so badly in the polls it's hard to imagine a theft big enough to allow him to win. But the critical U.S. Senate race between the GOP's incumbent Mike DeWine and U.S. Representative Sherrod Brown is very close. So are numerous congressional races throughout the state, any one of which could help decide who controls the U.S. House of Representatives.
The tactics being tested and used here in Ohio are certain to surface in various forms around the U.S. HB3, for example, has quintupled the fees charged by the state for a recount. In Ohio 2004, the Green and Libertarian Parties obtained a flawed and ultimately worthless recount for about $120,000. A similar statewide recount for the 2006 U.S. Senate race would cost about $600,000.
But Blackwell has decimated even the previously feeble safeguards for such recounts, making them even more illusory than they were in 2004. HB3 has also removed any state recourse in the case of a contested election here for the U.S. Senate or House, or for the presidency.
So even if a recount showed a clear theft, the state courts are barred from jurisdiction. The only appeal now allowed would be a direct plea to the federal courts or Congress.
On the other hand, HB3 provides no special system for monitoring the electronic voting machines on which about half the state's ballots will be cast. Though a paper receipt is now required for all electronic voting machines, there is no method by which the Diebold, ES&S, Triad and other touch-screen computers or electronic tabulators can be reliably protected from tampering.
Based on reports from the Conyers Congressional Committee, the Government Accountability Office, the Brennan Center, Princeton University and the Carter-Baker Commission among others, the vote count reported by Ohio's voting machines could be flipped by J. Kenneth Blackwell or other election official -- or even amateur hackers -- in a matter of moments, with a few simple keystrokes.
In sum: there is no way such a manipulation could be definitively stopped, monitored, proven or reversed.
Thus Ohio enters the last week prior to this most critical mid-term election in recent memory in utter vulnerability and chaos. Tens of thousands of absentee ballots already cast are in limbo. Their ultimate status may not be determined until hours before election day, if then. Hundreds of thousands of potential voters remain uncertain about what, if any, forms of identification they will be required to include on their absentee ballots or to present at their polling stations. If the experience of 2004 is repeated, many of those polling stations will be incorrectly listed on the secretary of state's official web site.
Thousands of Ohio citizens may also not know if they are actually registered to vote. All 88 of Ohio's county boards of election are effectively controlled by Secretary of State Blackwell. Since 2000, without official notification, some 170,000 voters have been stripped from the registration rolls in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), 170,000 in Franklin County (Columbus), 105,000 in Hamilton County (Cincinnati) and 28,000 in Lucas County (Toledo).
Overall, nearly 500,000 registered voters are known to have been eliminated from the rolls in overwhelmingly Democratic districts in a state where 5.6 million people voted in 2004, and where George W. Bush won with an alleged margin of less than 119,000 votes. There is no evidence similar eliminations have occurred in Republican areas.
While reports of widespread purges have not proved true, there is increasing evidence that county boards of elections used voter notification cards required by HB3 that were returned by the post office to flag hundreds of thousands of voters' names at the polls throughout Ohio and force them to vote provisionally. An Erie County official placed the number of flagged voters at about 24 percent in his county.
Blackwell has further ruled that citizens who vote with provisional ballots at their correct polling place but in the wrong precinct (which may be housed in the same building) will not have their vote counted. Back ups of provisional voters created long lines in 2004. The only safe place to cast a provisional ballot is at the county board of elections, but often these votes are disqualified because voters fail to check off a small affirmation box, or do not supply a date of birth or other requested technical information.
Ohio's electoral process is thus once again sinking into a fog of confusion, disenfranchisement and theft perfectly designed to prolong the GOP control of the government. There is every reason to believe that in the week now remaining before the actual election, the GOP and its allies in the federal court system will use the escalating chaos to their advantage in attempting to keep control of the U.S. Congress, here and in other states.
The definitive question hovering over the future of American democracy thus remains: who will do what about it, and when?
This article originally appeared in The Free Press.
Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman are co-authors, with Steve Rosenfeld, of WHAT HAPPENED IN OHIO: A DOCUMENTARY RECORD OF THEFT AND FRAUD IN THE 2004 ELECTION, just published by the New Press. Fitrakis is of counsel, and Wasserman is a plaintiff, in the King Lincoln lawsuit. Fitrakis is an independent candidate for governor, endorsed by the Green Party; Wasserman is author of SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, a.d. 2030, available via www.solartopia.org.
Who is Mr. Gates? Part 1
Bush administration's Trojan Horse gift to America and the Democrats: Former CIA Director and Iran-Contra insider Robert Gates
By Larry Chin
Online Journal Associate Editor
Nov 10, 2006, 00:52
With the Democrats and Democratic Party voters euphoric over a purported election victory, and a possible "change of course" in Iraq, the Bush administration quietly added poison to the Democrats' celebration champagne by dredging up former CIA Director and Iran-Contra participant Robert Gates to replace Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary.
The "war on terrorism" will not only continue, it will expand and deepen with Gates heading the Pentagon.
Who is Robert Gates?
Robert M. Gates was the CIA's Deputy Director for Intelligence (DDI) from 1982 to 1986. He became CIA Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (DDCI) in 1986, and moved up to Acting Director of Central Intelligence (ADCI) that same year. In 1991, George H.W. Bush nominated Gates to head the CIA (as Langley's DCI).
As a protégé of the infamous William Casey, and as both deputy director and director of the CIA, it goes without saying that Robert Gates was involved in every geopolitical crime and cover-up of the Reagan-Bush and George H.W. Bush era.
The encyclopedic list includes Iran-Contra, CIA narcotics trafficking, criminal covert operations, the infamous October Surprise, and the Bank of Credit and Commerce (BCCI) scandal.
Gates, Iran-Contra, and CIA drug trafficking
During the George H.W. Bush administration, with the Iran-Contra crimes still fresh, Gates survived the confirmation hearings (from a much fiercer Washington Congress) that elevated him to director of Central Intelligence. He was tarnished, but survived, the hobbled and corrupted Lawrence Walsh probe of Iran-Contra, which left the vast majority of Iran-Contra crimes unaddressed.
Despite its limitations, the Walsh probe managed to expose and tarnish many of the operation's players, and resulted in convictions for several participants (and, soon afterwards, pardoned by George H.W. Bush), one of them being Gates.
Robert Gates, like many Reagan-Bush era players, has a lot to answer for.
Subsequent research documents the fact that the CIA, National Security Council (NSC), and branches of the US military engaged in a host of massive narcotics trafficking operations, the most noteworthy of which were named Amadeus, Watch Tower, and Pegasus.
These operations, combined with related operations and geopolitical programs, comprise what is popularly known as "Iran-Contra."
Robert Gates was there for it all.
Gates is one of many officials implicated in detailed histories of the Iran-Contra period, and in CIA documents and reports, including the 1998 CIA Inspector General's Report into Contra Drug Trafficking. Gates' name surfaces in the Cutolo Affadavit (attributed to Army Colonel and CIA operative Ed Cutolo, the supervisor of Operation Watch Tower, but likely penned by Cutolo's associates, but thoroughly corroborated by whistleblowers and researchers).
According to Rodney Stich, author of Defrauding America, each operation "had basically the same characters involved . . . with Edwin Wilson . . . Robert Gates and William J. Casey . . ."
Despite being "in the loop," Gates has routinely denied his guilt over the years, but proof of his active role cannot be hidden. As acting DCI, Gates issued a memo that was tantamount to ordering a cover-up.
According to Mike Ruppert of From The Wilderness, a long-time whistleblower and chronicler of the CIA's narcotics crimes: "On April 9, 1987, Acting DCI Robert Gates sent a memorandum to the Deputy Director of Operations (DDO) Clair George stating it was imperative that CIA avoid involvement with individuals tied to the Contra program who were 'even suspected of involvement in narcotics trafficking.' The Gates memorandum instructed the DDO to vet contract air crews, air service companies and subcontractors with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), US Customs and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to ensure that the Agency would not be involved in any way with individuals suspected of being involved with drug trafficking."
In other words, cover up the extensive network in place, cut off relationships with assets, eliminate troublesome operatives, and create plausible denial.
How in-the-loop was Gates?
Retired US Navy Lt. Commander and ONI officer Al Martin, a participant in the Iran-Contra operations, authored The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran-Contra Insider. In this book, Martin hangs the entire Bush apparatus out to dry, and details the many Iran-Contra-related criminal operations.
According to Martin, Gates was high-level.
"In terms of policy management, (William) Casey formed a series of inter-governmental agency Restricted Access Groups (RAGs). Ultimately three such groups were formed. The top Restricted Access Group 1 was Vice President George Bush -- as it was decided that all narcotics, weapons and money operations vis-à-vis Iran-Contra, would be consolidated under the office of the Vice President.
"Also included in these Restricted Access Groups were then Vice Presidential National Security Advisor, Colonel Donald Gregg, then Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger and Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, who was in charge of the Inter-American Affairs Office (an office which served in no other capacity except being a propaganda tool for the Nicaraguan Contras), Richard Armitage, and Assistant Secretary of State, Bernie Aronson.
"In the Department of Defense, the RAG group included Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Stillwell, and Caspar Weinberger himself.
"In the CIA, besides Casey, there was the infamous Deputy Director of Operations, Clair George, and Assistant Deputy Director of Operations, Alan Fiers.
"The names involved in the Restricted Access Group would change as these men changed positions in government from 1983 through 1986.
"When Frank Carlucci left the Defense Department to become Presidential National Security Advisor and Bobby Gates became Deputy Director of the CIA, Gates supplanted Carlucci within Restricted Access Group 2."
Gates, according to Martin, was elevated to Group 1 status upon being confirmed as Director of Central Intelligence.
Gates and assassinations
According to Stich, Robert Hunt, former Navy SEAL commander and deep-cover CIA/ONI operative, described to him a CIA assassination squad called Operation Ringwind.
This operation, according to Hunt, was under the control of then-Deputy Director of the CIA Robert Gates.
"They call it Operation Ringwind, formed in early 1981. It was strictly to take care of all participants in October Surprise until they decide to shut the operation down. And that could be tomorrow morning, or ten years from now. Whoever they think is involved."
Iran and the Bushes
According to Robert Parry, "the American people today should know the real history of US-Iran relations before the Bush administration launches another preemptive war in the Middle East."
This history, which covers Gates' long tenure at the CIA, "includes the facts regarding Republican contacts with Iran's Islamic regime more than a quarter of a century ago -- relevant today because an underlying theme in Bush's rationale for war is that direct negotiations with Iran are pointless. But Bush's own father may know otherwise."
The Bushes and the Truth about Iran (Robert Parry)
It is no coincidence that Iran veteran Gates comes to the Bush administration as the US prepares for operations against Iran.
Gates and BCCI cover-up
The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was the CIA's legendary drug bank and money laundering nexus.
In Defrauding America, Stich writes, "CIA Deputy Director Robert Gates stated in 1988 to the head of Customs, William von Raab, that BCCI stood for the 'Bank of Crooks and Criminals International.' But the CIA continued to deposit and launder funds in BCCI, covering up the criminal activities that would defraud people all over the world who had put their money into the bank.
"In the 1980s, US Customs Commissioner William von Raab unsuccessfully tried to get the Justice Department to act on the serious federal violations committed by BCCI.
"Raab testified to Senate investigators that in 1988 he told CIA Deputy Director Robert Gates of the drug money laundering at BCCI, and that Gates refused to proceed with the information."
A tactical move
The Rumsfeld resignation is not a sign of desperation or surrender in response to Democratic Party heat. It was a long-planned tactical move that strengthens the Bush administration's inner circle, while slapping the political opposition in the face.
By replacing the criminally insane Rumsfeld with the Bush-Reagan era insider Gates, the Bush administration (and Karl Rove) seeks to accomplish three objectives.
It puts another Iran-Contra criminal and military-intelligence criminal veteran into the cabinet, atop the Pentagon and America's war machine -- ensuring the expansion, penetration and successful execution of the "war on terrorism" into the rest of the Middle East and Iran (which William Casey protégé Gates got to know intimately, as CIA official during the administrations of Reagan-Bush, and George H.W. Bush ).
Gates joins other Iran-Contra criminals, such as Elliott Abrams and John Negroponte, at the controls of power. The military brass had serious problems with the peevish Rumsfeld. It may not have these issues with the savvier (and, for the world, more dangerous) Gates.
It removes any chance, any relevance, to any hopes that leading Democrats had about dragging Rumsfeld, already a political liability for Bush, into hearings regarding the management of the Iraq war. The entire Iraq debate, which the Democrats had hoped would swirl around a sitting Rumsfeld, flies away with a new Gates Pentagon.
Gates, who had relatively few problems with Democrats in the past, is likely to meet little resistance from weak Democrats engaged in "bipartisanship." There is little chance that the Democrats are likely to bring up past history.
Other Iran-Contra participants have received similar red carpet treatments from Congress since 2000.
The Bush administration has done what it has always done: replace a political liability with something even more dangerous, a loyal insider to the very highest positions of authority. The move adds insult to six years of injury, an openly provocative act that dares the perplexed Democrats to do anything to stop it, knowing that they will not.
If Robert Gates does with his new Pentagon power what he did at the CIA during his previous tenure, the world is in for tremendous suffering and death, and more covert and overt warfare -- all well-"managed," packaged and sold to Congress. Gates, unlike the divisive Rumsfeld, is a criminal who is capable of uniting the elite consensus.