The Daily Background

The Senate Armed Services Committee will begin to interview President Bush’s SecDef nominee Robert Gates today, which is expected to go fairly quickly, despite questions about prior intelligence manipulation on his part– more on that here (this is a point that Democratic Senator Carl Levin of Michigan intends to ask about. Levin, currently the Ranking Member of the Committee will take over the reigns as Chair from Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia when Democrats take over the Majority in the Senate come January 4th).

He is expected to be confirmed by the full Senate in the coming days with relatively little hassle, because in the words of some Democrats and exasperated Republicans- the sooner we get somebody other than Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense- the better.

Iraq-Iraq-Iraq. I won’t be liveblogging anything (sorry, I’ve got class), but I reccomend paying special attention to not only the answers he gives about his views on Iraq (or the dodging and failure to give answers about his views on Iraq), but also who on the Committee is asking the questions about Iraq, and which questions they’re asking.

Update: here’s your first example:

President Bush’s nominee to be secretary of defense said Tuesday he does not believe the United States is winning in Iraq. Robert Gates answered a simple “no” when incoming Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin asked if the United States was winning the war.

Update 2: Video here.

Filed under: Rumsfeld Related, Iraq Related, Z-TDB Blog