Maybe Robert Gates Brings Hope

[SlowwHand]

The essence of my point.

...Gates said he intends to travel soon to Iraq to hear commanders' assessments of the situation on the ground and to gain their advice — "unvarnished and straight from the shoulder" — on how to adjust U.S. war strategy. He said he would give
President Bush honest advice and listen to military commanders — a contrast to critics' complaints that Rumsfeld was an ideologue who paid scant heed to top officers.

"All of us want to find a way to bring America's sons and daughters home again," Gates told a few hundred people in a Pentagon auditorium, including Bush, Cabinet secretaries, members of Congress, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Gates' wife and mother. Rumsfeld, who handed off his authority earlier Monday in a private event, did not attend the ceremony...

[Imran Siddiqui]

What a concept... listen to the officers? Why hasn't anyone thought of that before .

[Dinner]

Rumsfield most certainly was arrogant and ignored just about all the military brass. He over ruled them when they told him 500,000 troops would be needed to invade and control the country, he ignored them when they told him additional troops would be needed to quil the growing insurgency, and he dismissed them when they told him the pace of reconstruction was completely inadiquet. I hope Gates listens better, maybe he is listening better, or then again maybe he's just doing a song and dance while the President continues to follow the same policies as he just shuffles his cabinet a bit. Time will tell.

It certainly doesn't boad well that the Administration has decided to ignore the findings of the Iraq study group.

[Arrian]

The soldiers can perhaps impress upon him how things are, but are they going to have any better idea of how to "fix" it?

As for the study group... how many of those guys left the green zone? One the one hand, one can make some sound judgments w/o going to Iraq at all. On the other, if one is going to go to Iraq, what is the point of going and staying in the green zone?

-Arrian