Why the Gates Appointment Must Be Stopped Through a Democratic Filibuster

[Dems Will Win]

Robert Gates is "dirty", according to intelligence scuttlebutt. The time has come for Harry Reid to put his foot down and not allow another at-large Iran-Contra criminal, Robert Gates, back into the government. A filibuster is the only answer, as Bush is going to try and ram through the nomination in December.

11 Current Dems already voted against confirming Gates for CIA Director on November 5, 1991: Max Baucus (MT), Joe Biden (DE), Jeff Bingaman (NM), Kent Conrad (ND), Chris Dodd (CT), Tom Harkin (IA), Ted Kennedy (MA), John Kerry (MA), Frank Lautenberg (NJ), Carl Levin (MI), and Jay Rockefeller (WV).

Dems need to cite the following as the reason for the filibuster:

Walsh Iran-Contra Report:
Robert M. Gates was the Central Intelligence Agency's deputy director for intelligence (DDI) from 1982 to 1986. He was confirmed as the CIA's deputy director of central intelligence (DDCI) in April of 1986 and became acting director of central intelligence in December of that same year. Owing to his senior status in the CIA, Gates was close to many figures who played significant roles in the Iran/contra affair and was in a position to have known of their activities.

Gates was an early subject of Independent Counsel's investigation, but the investigation of Gates intensified in the spring of 1991 as part of a larger inquiry into the Iran/contra activities of CIA officials. This investigation received an additional impetus in May 1991, when President Bush nominated Gates to be director of central intelligence (DCI)."

Walsh could not prosecute Gates because of stone-walling by Clair George of the CIA. New evidence:

could have warranted reopening his inquiry , including testimony by Clair E. George, the CIA's former deputy director for operations. At the time Independent Counsel reached this decision , the possibility remained that George could have provided information warranting reconsideration of Gates's status in the investigation. George refused to cooperate with Independent Counsel and was indicted on September 19, 1991. George subpoenaed Gates to testify as a defense witness at George's first trial in the summer of 1992, but Gates was never called.

From Robert Parry from TODAY:

Gates also was implicated in a secret operation to funnel military assistance to Iraq in the 1980s, as the Reagan administration played off the two countries battling each other in the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq War.

Middle Eastern witnesses alleged that Gates worked on the secret Iraqi initiative, which included Saddam Hussein’s procurement of cluster bombs and chemicals used to produce chemical weapons for the war against Iran.

“The CIA, including both CIA Director Casey and Deputy Director Gates, knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to Iraq,” Teicher wrote.

Boren’s Intelligence Committee brushed aside two witnesses connecting Gates to the alleged schemes, former Israeli intelligence official Ari Ben-Menashe and Iranian businessman Richard Babayan. Both offered detailed accounts about Gates’s alleged connections to the schemes.

Ben-Menashe, who worked for Israeli military intelligence from 1977-87, first fingered Gates as an operative in the secret Iraq arms pipeline in August 1990 during an interview that I conducted with him for PBS Frontline.

YOU MUST READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/110906.html

And of course Gates was partly responsible for the covering up of the weakness of the Soviet Union and the arming of Islamic fundamentalists and Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan--saying the Soviet Union was strong and must be defeated in Afghanistan!

The CIA, ever mindful of the need to justify its “mission,” had conclusive evidence by the mid-1980s of the deepening crisis of infrastructure within the Soviet Union. The CIA, as its deputy director Robert Gates acknowledged under congressional questioning in 1992, had decided to keep that evidence from President Reagan and his top advisors and instead continued to grossly exaggerate Soviet military and technological capabilities in its annual “Soviet Military Power” report right up to 1990.

Given that context, a decision was made to provide America’s potential enemies with the arms, money - and most importantly - the knowledge of how to run a war of attrition violent and well-organized enough to humble a superpower.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3340101/

Start e-mailing, perhaps to the list of Senators who already voted once against Gates.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Yes. If Frist tries to go nuclear now, he knows his party will get it back in spades after Jan.

[Dems Will Win]

2. If Gates looks like he will open up a can of worms and Iran Contra

and the secret arming of Iraq with WMD, the nomination will be skotched.

Also Gates right now, as President of A&M University, has in the Library there all the sealed records of Bush I on Iran-Contra! He's in charge of keeping those sealed Iran Contra records secret!

[Jacobin]

3. Here is why I disagree

I understand the visceral reaction to allowing yet another criminal to hold an important position in government.

However, IMHO what we have seen with Rumsfeld's departure is Poppy forcing Shrub to hire a paleocon to end the war. The paleocons never wanted to try to conquer and occupy Iraq. They had their opportunity and wisely chose not to. Making Shrub hire one of daddy's minions is a slap in the face of the ultimate kind.

If Gates the paleocon is not put in charge, we run the risk of Shrub trying to find one of the few remaining neocons to head the DoD which will mean no change in course and years more of the same.

I believe the paleocons know that Iraq can never ever be subdued and conquered and occupied. They will get a new strongman dictator in Iraq who will sell us oil, just like in the good old days. At this point, that's fine with me. I want our troops home.

[fob]

4. I will agree with you and add a different reason. We need ALL of

these freaks to be brought into the light and diiscredited fully and for once and for all. Let this be bush*s choice only now we get to provide some real fucking oversight.