Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

Bush nominates Gates as new Secretary of Defense
By Michelle Osorio
Massachusetts Daily Collegian (U. Massachusetts)
11/09/2006

(U-WIRE) AMHERST, Mass. — Wednesday morning, one day after exit polls showed public discontent with the handling of the Iraq war in the midterm elections, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stepped down as defense secretary.

"The timing is right for new leadership at the Pentagon," Bush said to the press at the White House Wednesday. "I recognize that many Americans voted last night to register their displeasure with the lack of progress being made."

The Republican Party experienced strong losses this past election, much of which Bush believes has to do with the Iraq conflict. According to CNN, 57 percent of voters are dissatisfied with the leadership in the defense sector.

Rumsfeld, who also served under President Ford, has been defense secretary and the head of the Pentagon since the beginning of President Bush's first term, almost six years ago.

With the abrupt change in leadership in the middle of a political and military conflict, President Bush assured the public yesterday that Rumsfeld's experience and judgment have not been put up to scrutiny, yet the time has come for new leadership.

"Don Rumsfeld has been a superb leader during a time of change," Bush said Wednesday. "Yet he also appreciates the value of bringing in a fresh perspective during a critical period in this war."

The fresh face President Bush spoke of is former CIA chief Robert Gates, who is the current president of Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.

However, despite President Bush's claims to the contrary, Stanford University professor Joshua Cohen, who holds a doctorate in political science, believes this move was strictly political and well planned out to answer the displeasure of the voter demographic as evidence in the results of the midterm elections.

"I thought it was, uncharacteristically, an extremely smart move politically on Bush's part," Cohen said.

Cohen said he perceived the recent election results as the American people's way of acting out against the war.

"People voted against the war and against the architects of the war. [Voters] were basically saying Bush should get rid of Rumsfeld," said Cohen.

Cohen isn't alone in his theories. Dade Singapuri, who stations herself in the Campus Center every Wednesday with free information covering subjects from nuclear power to the United States' occupation of Iraq, also believes the sudden resignation of Rumsfeld is the result of the midterm catalyst of last Tuesday.

"Had the Republicans maintained a lead, even by one, he would not have resigned," said Singapuri. "I think that had [the Republicans] retained the House they would have considered that a go-ahead. We know of the pressure that's been on Rumsfeld for days. The generals are unhappy with him."

Rumsfeld's leadership has undergone strict scrutiny by the media and the public these past few months as the death toll in Iraq rises and the sectarian violence ruins attempts of peace in the region. His leadership of the Department of Defense was described as "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically" by retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton.

"Mr. Rumsfeld and his immediate team must be replaced or we will see two more years of extraordinarily bad decision-making," Eaton said in a forum set up by Senate Democrats in September.

During Tuesday's elections, ballots in 84 towns in Western Massachusetts included a question on withdrawal from Iraq, and the majority of voters supported removal of troops, according to the Daily Hampshire Gazette. The referendum was sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). According to the AFSC Web site, 655,000 soldiers have died in Iraq so far.

"This is the voters saying: enough with the war, enough with the bloodshed," Barbara L. Chalfonte, director for the group's local campaign in East Hampton told The Republican.

The Department of Defense is now at a standstill as Gates awaits confirmation.

It is still unclear, however, what the Senate's response to Gates will be and whether or not President Bush will utilize his constitutional power of recess appointment since the Senate is out of session. Gates served on the National Security Council and was director of the CIA under President George H. W. Bush.

Gates was also part of the Iraq Study Group known as the Baker Commission that delivered an independent assessment of Iraq on March 15, 2006.

[ Back to Student Voices ]