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Going after Rumsfeld is not a good idea: William Cohen (Bill Clinton's SecDef)
Former Defense Secretary William Cohen interviewed in the Times of London, gives his opinion on many things, including Secretary Rumsfeld's near future and the likely accomplishments of his successor.William Cohen as defense secretary to Bill Clinton was somewhat unique, a Republican serving in a sensitive cabinet post in a Democrat administration. After 31 years in public life, Cohen is now the chairman of the Cohen Group representing top level companies in the US, Europe, Australia, China and now India. But his government background is never far away, so he has emerged as one of the key advocates of the US-India civil nuclear agreement. Here in a chat with The Times of India's diplomatic editor, he gives an insider's view of what could happen on Capitol Hill over the next few weeks, the chances for the nuclear deal and what would it mean if the deal failed. Q: Talking of looking to the past, does former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld now look forward to months of testifying at investigation committees? A: I doubt it. With his departure, there is little interest in going back to investigating where the mistakes were. Its pretty well known, books are coming out by the carload saying what the mistakes were in Iraq. I don't think much new would come out of an investigation. Its always helpful to have lessons learnt. That's always a good exercise. But to start Rumsfeld on testimonies... I don't think so. Going after Rumsfeld is not a good idea and I would not advise it. Its also not good for the country. Q: You know the new defense secretary Bob Gates. What's your opinion of him? A: I know him well. We worked closely when I was vice chairman of the intelligence committee. We worked hard to see him confirmed on the second posting. First time, he withdrew his name when he was originally posted for the directorship (of CIA). This was during Bush41. There were questions about the Iran-Contra affair and whether or not intelligence had been "politicized". Rather than go through the process, he said he didn't want to be source of controversy. He became deputy national security adviser. Then Bush again nominated him and we confirmed him. Bob Gates is a very capable man. He's capable of dealing with a large bureaucracy of which the Pentagon is the largest in terms of being the largest agency in the country. He's very knowledgeable. His agenda will also be very limited. In two years, he cannot have a whole list of here's-what-I-want-done stuff, say, in terms of transformation, which has been under way. It has been under way with Bill Perry, my predecessor, I continued it, Secretary Rumsfeld tried to accelerate it. Bob Gates will have that momentum. But he's got to progress on Iraq, Iran, North Korea, those are the big issues he has to contend with. He has to look at how we can reconstitute the military force structure given the constraints on the budget, given that we're spending so much on Iraq $ 80-90 billion dollars just in supplementals. That's putting a tremendous strain on resources. He's going to have several big issues to contend with in a very short period of time. Much more at link. Posted by: trailing wife 2006-11-13 |
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