Former Defense SecretaryRobert Gates backed the Obama administration’s handling of attacks on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, saying had he headed the Pentagon at the time he wouldn’t have approved sending a small force into Libya as some critics suggested.
Gates said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program today that sending a single aircraft or a small number of special forces into Libya “without knowing what the threat is, without having any intelligence, would have been very dangerous.”
The Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Behghazi, Libya, killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens in September.
Republicans have said the Democratic Obama administration manipulated the characterization of the events that day, saying the White House and State Department played down for political reasons the link to terrorism and warnings from intelligence agencies in the lead-up to the attack.
Gates told the CBS program that he thought U.S. involvement in Libya was a mistake, and he thinks it’s a mistake to get involved in Syria.
“We overestimate our ability to determine outcomes,” Gates said during the interview. “Caution, particularly in terms of arming these groups and in terms of U.S. military involvement, is in order. Anybody who says ‘It’s going to be clean, it’s going to be neat, you can establish safe zones, well, most wars aren’t that way.’”
Gates began serving as Defense secretary under Republican President George W. Bush in November 2006 and continued in the post under President Barack Obama. He left the job in June 2011.
Asked if he thought the Iraq war begun by the Bush administration was a mistake, Gates replied: “I think that what we now know, in terms of the fact that they did not have weapons of mass destruction, will always taint the fact that we went to war in Iraq.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Sara Forden in Washington at [email protected].
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at [email protected].
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[h=3]Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates[/h]
Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that he thought U.S. involvement in Libya was a mistake, and he thinks it’s a mistake to get involved in Syria.
Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that he thought U.S. involvement in Libya was a mistake, and he thinks it’s a mistake to get involved in Syria. Photographer: Mark Elias/Bloomberg
Gates said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program today that sending a single aircraft or a small number of special forces into Libya “without knowing what the threat is, without having any intelligence, would have been very dangerous.”
The Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Behghazi, Libya, killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens in September.
Republicans have said the Democratic Obama administration manipulated the characterization of the events that day, saying the White House and State Department played down for political reasons the link to terrorism and warnings from intelligence agencies in the lead-up to the attack.
Gates told the CBS program that he thought U.S. involvement in Libya was a mistake, and he thinks it’s a mistake to get involved in Syria.
“We overestimate our ability to determine outcomes,” Gates said during the interview. “Caution, particularly in terms of arming these groups and in terms of U.S. military involvement, is in order. Anybody who says ‘It’s going to be clean, it’s going to be neat, you can establish safe zones, well, most wars aren’t that way.’”
Gates began serving as Defense secretary under Republican President George W. Bush in November 2006 and continued in the post under President Barack Obama. He left the job in June 2011.
Asked if he thought the Iraq war begun by the Bush administration was a mistake, Gates replied: “I think that what we now know, in terms of the fact that they did not have weapons of mass destruction, will always taint the fact that we went to war in Iraq.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Sara Forden in Washington at [email protected].
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at [email protected].
Enlarge image
[h=3]Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates[/h]
Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that he thought U.S. involvement in Libya was a mistake, and he thinks it’s a mistake to get involved in Syria. Photographer: Mark Elias/Bloomberg