'Bob' Gates On The "Long War On Terrorism" From Todays Hearing

[Jcrowley]

MR. GATES: And the Iraqis are going to have to make some difficult decisions themselves, not only in terms of how they deal with sectarian violence but how they approach national reconciliation; how are they going to distribute the oil revenues fairly, so that everyone has a stake in the society; and how are they going to -- and related to the national reconciliation -- how are they going to ensure that these different ethnic and religious groups can live together peacefully. Those, I think -- those are some of the political decisions that the Iraqis have to make and -- in addition to standing up their military.

I would say also, Senator Lieberman, that there’s a second reason why I agreed to become a nominee for this position. I believe very deeply that one of the fundamental factors in our success in the Cold War was our ability to have a broad, bipartisan agreement on the fundamental strategy on how to deal with the Soviet Union through nine successive presidencies and many Congresses, both Republicans and Democrats in support.

Now, we argued and fought a lot about tactics and this and that, but there was fundamentally agreement on how to approach the Soviet Union.

I think that it is imperative in this long war on terrorism that we face, that could go on for a generation, that there be a bipartisan agreement. It probably wouldn’t include everybody -- that’s too difficult. But if you could get broad agreement on a path forward not only in Iraq, but then in terms of how we fight this long war, then there would be consistency on the part of whoever is elected president in 2008 and beyond, so that we can carry on this struggle in a way that they don’t think we’re going to cut and run --

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/05/washington/05text-gates1.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin&oref=slogin