Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War by Robert M Gates Read Free Book Online Page A

dollars—through the congressionally chartered Institute of Peace. The effort ultimately would also be supported by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. Former secretary of state Jim Baker and former Indiana congressman Lee Hamilton agreed to cochair what would be known as the Iraq Study Group.
    Baker called me in February to ask me to be one of five Republicans in the group. While he and I had had a few disagreements during Bush 41’s time in office (when I was deputy national security adviser), I had great respect for him and thought he had been a very effective secretary of state. I had written of Jim that I was always glad he was on our side as a negotiator. My first question to him was whether the president supported this initiative, because if he didn’t, it would be a waste of time. Jim said that when he was approached about cochairing, his first call had been to Bush 43 to ask the very same question. He did not want to be involved in an effort that the president or others saw as undermining the administration. He assured me that 43 was on board. I later decided that the president wasn’t so much supportive as acquiescent, perhaps hoping we could make useful suggestions or provide some political help at home.
    Because the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, released the day of my confirmation hearing, would play a major part in the debate over Iraq in 2007–8, it is important to know something about how the group did its work and how the thrust of the group’s final recommendations surprised me.
    The other Republicans involved were retired Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor, former attorney general Ed Meese, and former Wyoming senator Alan Simpson. The Democrats were led by Hamilton and included former Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director and White House chief of staff Leon Panetta, former Virginia senator Chuck Robb, Washington lawyer Vernon Jordan, and former secretary of defense William Perry. Hamilton had chaired both the House Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and I had known him for nearly twenty years. Lee is a man of extraordinaryintegrity and intellectual honesty, and I looked forward to working with him.
    What you won’t find in the report of the Iraq Study Group was how much fun we had. Simpson is simply hilarious, Panetta and Jordan both have a great sense of humor, Baker is a fount of wicked one-line asides, Hamilton has a very dry Indiana sense of humor, and everyone was easy to get along with. We understood the seriousness of our purpose but saw no reason why it should be boring.
    The group launched its effort with a meeting on March 15. We met a total of eight times in Washington. Our efforts focused on the strategic environment in and around Iraq; security in Iraq and key challenges to enhancing it; political developments within Iraq following the elections and formation of the new government; and the economy and reconstruction. We put together a list of experts on each of the four main subject areas, received large three-ring notebooks of papers to read, and sat through innumerable briefings. We heard a broad range of views as we talked with all the key figures in the administration, including the president, former senior government officials, and a number of our most senior military leaders, as well as brigade-level officers, intelligence community leaders and experts, members of Congress, foreign officials, journalists, and commentators.
    We asked a lot of questions. Justice O’Connor had no experience in foreign affairs or national security issues, but she was probably the best questioner. It was extraordinary to listen to her. From her years as a Supreme Court justice, she had an amazing ear for faulty logic, questionable evidence, inconsistency, and flawed analysis. In a kindly but