Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (3 page)

During these three weeks I first met Robert Rangel, the “special assistant” to Rumsfeld—in reality, his chief of staff. Before going to the Pentagon in 2005, Rangel had been on the staff of the House Armed Services Committee, including a several-year stint as staff director. I quickly concluded that Robert knew more, and had better instincts, about both Congress and the Department of Defense than anyone I had ever met. He would be invaluable to me, if I could persuade him to stay on.

The most dramatic event in the days before my hearing, one that more than any briefing clarified in my gut and my heart what I was about to take on, took place one evening when I was having dinner alone at my hotel. A middle-aged woman came up to my table and asked if I was Mr. Gates, the new secretary of defense. I said yes. She congratulated me on my nomination and then said to me with tears in her eyes, “I have two sons in Iraq. For God’s sake, please bring them home alive. We’ll be praying for you.” I was overwhelmed. I nodded, maybe mumbled something like, I’ll try. I couldn’t finish my dinner, and I couldn’t sleep that night. Our wars had just become very real to me, along with the responsibility I was taking on for all those in the fight. For the first time, I was frightened that I might not be able to meet that mother’s and the country’s expectations.

In the days prior to my confirmation hearing on December 5, I went through the ritual of visiting key senators, including, above all, those on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I was taken aback by the bitterness of the Republican senators over the president’s decision to announce the change at Defense only after the midterm election. They were all convinced that had the president announced a few weeks before the election that Rumsfeld was leaving, they would have kept their majority. The Republicans also groused about how the Bush White House dealt only—they said—with the leadership and ignored everyone else. Several were critical of senior military officers. While some of the Republicans, among them John McCain, expressed strong support for the war in Iraq and thought we should ramp up our effort, it was revealing that at least half the Republican senators were very concerned about our continuing involvement in Iraq and clearly saw the war as a large and growing political liability for their party.

The Democratic senators I met with expressed their opinions starkly: opposition to the war in Iraq and the need to end it; the need to focus on Afghanistan; their view that the Pentagon’s relationship with Congress was terrible and that civilian-military relations inside Defense were just as bad; their disdain for and dislike of George W. Bush (the forty-third president, hereafter occasionally referred to as Bush 43) and his White House staff; and their determination to use their new majorities in both houses of Congress to change course in the war and at home. They professed to be enormously pleased with my nomination and offered their support, I think mainly because they thought that I, as a member of the Iraq Study Group, would embrace their desire to begin withdrawing from Iraq.

The courtesy calls foreshadowed what the years to come would be like. Senators who would viciously attack the president in public over Iraq were privately thoughtful about the consequences of failure. Most made sure to acquaint me with the important defense industries in their states and pitch for my support to those shipyards, depots, bases, and related sources of jobs. I was dismayed that in the middle of fighting two wars, such parochial issues were so high on their priority list.

Taken as a whole, the courtesy calls to senators on both sides of the aisle were very discouraging. I had anticipated the partisan divide but not that it would be so personal with regard to the president and others in the administration. I had not expected members of both parties to be
so critical of both civilian and military leaders in the Pentagon, in terms of not only their job performance but also their dealings with the White House and with Congress. The courtesy calls made quite clear to me that my agenda would have to be broader than just Iraq. Washington itself had become a war zone, and it would be my battlespace for the next four and a half years.

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ONFIRMATION

During the car ride from my hotel to the Capitol for my confirmation to be secretary of defense, I thought in wonder about my path to such a moment. I grew up in a middle-class family of modest means in Wichita, Kansas. My older brother and I were the first in the history of our family to graduate from college. My father was a salesman for a wholesale automotive parts company. He was a rock-ribbed Republican who idolized Dwight D. Eisenhower; Franklin D. Roosevelt was “that damn dictator,” and I was about ten before I learned that Harry Truman’s first name wasn’t “goddamn.” My mother’s side of the family were mostly Democrats, so from an early age bipartisanship seemed sensible to me. Dad and I talked (argued) often about politics and the world.

Our family of four was close, and my childhood and youth were spent in a loving, affectionate, and happy home. My father was a man of unshakable integrity, with a big heart and, when it came to people (versus politics), an open mind. He taught me early in life to take people one at a time, based on their individual qualities and never as a member of a group. That led, he said, to hatred and bias; that was what the Nazis had done. He had no patience for lying, hypocrisy, people who put on airs, or unethical behavior. In church, he occasionally would point out to me important men who fell short of his standards of character. My mother, as was common in those days, was a homemaker. She loved my brother and me deeply, and was our anchor in every way. My parents told me repeatedly when I was a boy that there were no limits to what I might achieve if I worked hard, but they also routinely cautioned me never to think I was superior to anyone else.

My life growing up in 1950s Kansas was idyllic, revolving around family, school, church, and Boy Scouts. My brother and I were Eagle Scouts. There were certain rules my parents insisted I follow, but within those bounds, I had extraordinary freedom to wander, explore, and test my
wings. My brother and I were adventuresome and a bit careless; we were both familiar sights in hospital emergency rooms. I was a smart aleck, and when I sassed my mother, a backhand slap across the face was likely to follow quickly if my father was within earshot. My mother was expert at cutting a willow switch to use across the backs of my bare legs when I misbehaved. The worst punishments were for lying. On those relatively infrequent occasions when I was disciplined, I’m confident I deserved it, though I felt deeply persecuted at the time. But their expectations and discipline taught me about consequences and taking responsibility for my actions.

My parents shaped my character and therefore my life. I realized on the way to the Senate that day that the human qualities they had imbued within me in those early years had brought me to this moment, and looking ahead, I knew they would be tested as never before.

I had been through three previous confirmation hearings. The first, in 1986, for deputy director of central intelligence, was a walk in the park and culminated in a unanimous vote. The second, in early 1987, for director of central intelligence, occurred in the middle of the Iran-Contra scandal; when it became clear that the Senate would not confirm me with so many unanswered questions about my role, I withdrew. The third, in 1991, again to be DCI, had been protracted and rough but ended with my confirmation, with a third of the senators voting against me. Experience told me that unless I really screwed up in my testimony, I would be confirmed as secretary of defense by a very wide margin. An editorial cartoon at the time captured the mood of the Senate (and the press) perfectly: it showed me standing with upraised right arm taking an oath—“I am not now nor have I ever been Donald Rumsfeld.” It was a useful and humbling reminder that my confirmation was not about who I was but rather who I was not. It was also a statement about how poisonous the atmosphere had become in Washington.

Senator John Warner of Virginia was chairman of the Armed Services Committee and thus chaired the hearing; the ranking minority member was Carl Levin of Michigan. The two would switch places in a few weeks as a result of the midterm elections. Warner was an old friend who had introduced me—he was my “home-state senator”—in all three of my preceding confirmation hearings. I did not know Levin very well, and
he had voted against me in 1991. Warner would deliver opening remarks, followed by Levin, and then I would be “introduced” to the committee by two old friends: former Senate majority leader Bob Dole of Kansas and former senator and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee David Boren, by then longtime president of the University of Oklahoma. Then I would make an opening statement.

Warner focused, right out of the gate, on Iraq. He reminded everyone that after his recent visit to Iraq, his eighth, he had said publicly that “in two or three months, if this thing [the war] hasn’t come to fruition and if this level of violence is not under control and if the government under Prime Minister Maliki is not able to function, then it’s the responsibility of our government internally to determine: Is there a change of course that we should take?” He quoted General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as having said the day before, when asked if we were winning in Iraq, “We’re not winning, but we’re not losing.” Warner commended the various reviews of Iraq strategy under way inside the administration and, in that context, advised me on how to do my job: “I urge you not to restrict your advice, your personal opinions regarding the current and future evaluations in these strategy discussions.… You simply have to be fearless—I repeat: fearless—in discharging your statutory obligations as, quote, ‘the principal assistant to the president in all matters relating to the Department of Defense.’ ” Warner was publicly signaling his weakening support for the president on Iraq.

Levin’s opening statement was very critical of the administration on Iraq and clearly set forth the views that he would bring to the table as chairman of the committee and with which I would be forced to contend beginning in January:

If confirmed as secretary of defense, Robert Gates will face the monumental challenge of picking up the pieces from broken policies and mistaken priorities in the past few years. First and foremost, this means addressing the ongoing crisis in Iraq. The situation in Iraq has been getting steadily worse, not better. Before the invasion of Iraq, we failed to plan to provide an adequate force for the occupation of the country, or to plan for the aftermath of major combat operations. After we toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, we thoughtlessly disbanded the Iraqi army and also disqualified tens of thousands of low-level Baath Party members from future government employment. These actions contributed to the
chaos and violence that followed, and to alienating substantial portions of the Iraqi population. We have failed, so far, to secure the country and defeat the insurgency. And we have failed to disarm the militias and create a viable Iraqi military or police force. And we have failed to rebuild the economic infrastructure of the country and provide employment for the majority of Iraqis. The next secretary of defense will have to deal with the consequences of those failures.

Levin went on to tell me that Iraq was not the only challenge I would face. He spoke of a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan; an unpredictable nuclear power in North Korea; Iran aggressively pursuing nuclear weapons; the Army and Marine Corps in need of tens of billions of dollars to repair and replace equipment; the declining readiness of our non-deployed ground forces; the continuing pursuit of weapons programs we couldn’t afford; the challenges in recruitment and retention of our forces; the problems of our military families after repeated deployments; and a department “whose image has been tarnished by the mistreatment of detainees in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo and elsewhere.”

Finally, the man I would have to work with as committee chairman said that the Department of Defense’s effectiveness had been reduced by a civilian senior leadership that “has too often not welcomed differing views, whether from our uniformed military leaders, the intelligence community, the State Department, American allies, or members of Congress of both political parties. The next secretary will have to work hard to heal these wounds and address the many problems facing the department and the country.”

I remember sitting at the witness table listening to this litany of woe and thinking,
What the hell am I doing here? I have walked right into the middle of a category-five shitstorm
. It was the first of many, many times I would sit at the witness table thinking something very different from what I was saying.

After very kind words from both Dole and Boren, it was my turn. I tried to open on a light note but one that reflected I hadn’t lost my perspective. Senator Warner had long felt strongly that a nominee’s family should accompany him or her to the confirmation hearing. Becky had accompanied me only to my very first hearing; I never thought of congressional hearings as family fare. I explained to Senator Warner that Becky had a choice: she could either attend my confirmation hearing or
accompany the Texas A&M women’s basketball team to Seattle to play the University of Washington. I said she was in Seattle, and I thought that was a good call. Then I got serious:

I am under no illusion why I am sitting before you today: the war in Iraq. Addressing challenges we face in Iraq must and will be my highest priority, if confirmed.… I am open to a wide range of ideas and proposals. If confirmed, I plan, urgently, to consult with our military leaders and our combat commanders in the field, as well as with others in the executive branch and in Congress.… I will give most serious consideration to the views of those who lead our men and women in uniform.

Then I delivered a warning.

While I am open to alternative ideas about our future strategy and tactics in Iraq, I feel quite strongly about one point: developments in Iraq over the next year or two will, I believe, shape the entire Middle East and greatly influence global geopolitics for many years to come. 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. We need to work together to develop a strategy that does not leave Iraq in chaos and that protects our long-term interests in, and hopes for, the region.