Editorial: Winds of change for Iraq?

Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2006 | 7:10 a.m.

Contrary to what the American public has been hearing from the Bush administration, the presumed next defense secretary told Congress on Tuesday that the United States is not winning the Iraq war.

Robert Gates, during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, was careful to say that we're not losing the war, either, even though Iraq is being consumed by a grotesquely bloody civil war.

Nevertheless, it was refreshing to hear some candor from the person who most likely will replace Donald Rumsfeld, a President Bush loyalist who could never bring himself to publicly express anything but optimism when discussing the war.

Gates also told the committee that the planning for the war was flawed from the outset, something Rumsfeld would never have dreamed of admitting. Gates said, "There clearly were insufficient troops in Iraq after the initial invasion." Some top Pentagon generals had warned Rumsfeld that he would need considerably more troops, but he spurned their advice.

While Gates seems more realistic than other Bush administration officials, saying that he is "open to a wide range of ideas and proposals" concerning the future conduct of the war, he testified that he shares Bush's ultimate outlook. The New York Times reported that Gates said this country's overall goal should remain bringing about an Iraq that can "sustain itself, defend itself and govern itself."

Gates also said, according to Gannett News Service, that the country's goal should be for Iraq to "become an ally in the war on terror."

The Associated Press quoted Gates as saying, "It seems to me that the United States is going 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."

We hope Gates will be a leader who has an open mind, one who will not bring to the Pentagon the dismissive, immutably all-knowing disposition of Rumsfeld. Gates testified that he will actively seek other opinions, such as those that will be brought forward today by the Iraq Study Group.

Gates, who was CIA director during the administration of the first President Bush, seemed during his testimony to be independent-minded enough to chart a much different path in Iraq. That is, if Bush will allow it.

The president, and the president alone, is responsible for the policy that dictates the course of the war and the future of Iraq. If the president doesn't listen to Gates, if he doesn't stop insisting that we are winning while condemning other points of view, then nothing will change for the better in Iraq.