Gates blogging

If he's to be the new Secretary of State, we should do some studying..

I'll post things I find here.

(link)

Howard Teicher, who served on Reagan's National Security Council staff, offered an affidavit in the Teledyne case that declared that CIA director William J. Casey and his deputy, Robert M. Gates, "authorized, approved and assisted" delivery of cluster bombs to Iraq through Cardoen (In These Times, 3/6/95).

(snip)

During the 1991 hearings to confirm Robert Gates as CIA director, Gates denied under oath that he had played a role in Cardoen cluster bomb sales to Iraq, as arms dealers had charged. Teicher's affidavit provides new evidence that Gates misled the Senate.

*UPDATE* Senator Harkin, on the nomination of Robert Gates to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1991. I wonder how he'll feel in 2006?

*UPDATE II* MSNBC called Joe Biden, who also voted against Gates in 1991. Andrea Mitchell says Biden told her he's a changed man now, and he would probably vote to confirm him this time around.

*UPDATE III* Yglesias reports that the 109th Congress will handle the confirmation, making any talking of blocking moot.

And despite what the digging suggests, Democrats have to go along with the change they've been clamoring for unless between now and then Gates says we need to "stay the course," or there's no need to change.

*UPDATE IV* For historians in the crowd, here is the Senate floor debating Robert Gates approval to the CIA in 1991.