It's actually three and a half years. I've been here for three of 'em.
Bush had better get ready to use the VETO stamp. The rats don't have the 2/3 majority they need to override.
The rats did NOT get a mandate on Tuesday.
White House hopes Gates can heal government rift
By David E. Sanger and Scott Shane / The New York Times
Published: November 12, 2006
WASHINGTON: President George W. Bush selected Robert Gates as his new defense secretary in part to close a long-running rift between the Defense Department and the State Department, which has hobbled progress on Iraq, keeping the two agencies at odds on issues ranging from reconstruction to detaining terrorism suspects, White House officials and members of Gates's inner circle said.
While Gates, a former director of the CIA, had long been considered for a variety of roles, over the past two months Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, quietly steered the White House toward replacing Donald Rumsfeld with Gates, who worked closely with Rice under President George H.W. Bush. One senior participant in those discussions, who declined to be identified, said "everyone realizes that we don't have much time to get this right" and the first step is to get "everyone driving on the same track."
White House officials said that goal may be difficult to accomplish in the seventh year of an administration. Rice and Rumsfeld never managed to resolve their differences, especially after their arguments over the handling of the occupation broke into public view in the late summer of 2003. As national security adviser during Bush's first term, Rice was unable to halt a war between the State Department and the Pentagon that put senior officials in the two departments in a state of constant conflict.
The question is whether it is too late to achieve Bush's goal of a stable and democratic Iraq, even if Gates and Rice are able to work together as smoothly in altering policy as they did 15 years ago on a very different kind of problem, managing the American response to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
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Letter From Washington: After Republican rout, who is to take the lead?A few members of the Iraq Study Group - the commission created in March at the urging of members of Congress, from which Gates stepped down Friday - have wondered aloud in recent days whether the insurgency and sectarian conflict may be too far advanced to reverse. The group will consult with the British prime minister, Tony Blair, by video Tuesday and is due to present recommendations to the White House and Congress in December.
And while Gates, who faces Senate confirmation hearings at roughly the same time, is considered far less combative and contrarian than Rumsfeld, he has a long-ago history of clashing with secretaries of state, most notably George Shultz, who objected to Gates's hawkish views of the Soviet Union and once tried to have him fired.
He is being thrust into the job at a moment when Democrats, newly empowered by their control of the House and the Senate, are promising investigations into the conduct of the war in Iraq and demanding a bigger voice in policy.
(excerpt)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/12/news/gates.php
You're right, my bad. My unit crossed the berm with 3ID at 0700 on the first day of the war. My how time flies. Been back once and will probably go back next year for a three-peat if the surrender monkeys have not already pulled us out and handed the country back to the enemy.