Changes in Policy, Changes in Leadership

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

By Page Hopkins, FoxNews Live

December 5, 2006

Page Hopkins: President Bush is having lunch today with former Secretary of State James Baker for a preview of final recommendations by the Iraq Study Group. The president will meet with the full panel tomorrow when the findings will be released to the public. And on Thursday members of the blue ribbon panel will explain their findings to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Joining us now the national news reporter for the Washington Times and Fox News analyst Bill Gertz and former Indiana Congressman Tim Roemer, he was a member of the Intelligence Committee and a 9/11 commissioner. Gentlemen, thanks for joining us today. Bill, I’m going to start with you. A lot has been leaked about this report, do you foresee any surprises?

Bill Gertz: Um no, you know in Washington the adage is people are policy so if you put James Baker in charge of it, I think that the report is going to reflect his views and I consider him kind of a big government Republican that is not necessarily liberal but essentially anti-conservative. So we’ll see some of the so-called realist views reflected in this report.

Hopkins: And Congressman Roemer, where do you think the Bush administration will take this report?

Tim Roemer: Well I certainly think they’re going to look at a host of recommendations given the election where voters voted for change and given a lot of criticism for the current status quo policy is coming from Republicans. We saw that in the oversight hearings today with future Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. The president will look very carefully at these recommendations. He’ll probably also look at the Joint Chief’s recommendations and his National Security Council recommendations. And with the new Secretary of Defense going into a position, hopefully in a short amount of time, there will be some significant changes in the policy in Iraq.

Hopkins: Right but given that Dr. Gates was part of that Iraq Study Group until he was nominated last month, is that likely to impact the way the president will look at this report?

Roemer: Well I think that so much depends on the president himself. The talk of change isn't credible, even though we have a new Secretary of Defense, unless the president wants to take advice and implement change and do some things differently. Again, he’s getting a lot of criticism from his own party on the status quo and when Secretary Gates, soon to be Secretary Gates I expect, said that they we're not winning in Iraq, I think that sent some further shock waves to the White House.

Hopkins: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that Bill, Dr. Gates received a very warm welcome from both sides of the aisle this morning. Was that more about Secretary Rumsfeld, or about potentially Secretary Gates?

Gertz: I think it was about Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld was a hardliner, one of the key hardliners in the administration. Bob Gates is not a hardliner, he’s really a bureaucrat, he’s an intelligence analyst meaning that his background is really about intelligence collection and analysis. The person who runs the Defense Department it’s all about the uses and limitations of force and military power. So I think that Gates is going to face a lot of challenges. He said he is open to all options and that kind of indicated maybe to me that he didn’t have any of his own.

Hopkins: Congressman Roemer, how do you think he’s going to differ from Secretary Rumsfeld in terms of the kind of boss he’s going to be, the kind of leader he’s going to be?

Roemer: Well certainly from his experience, Page, I think from both his public sector and his private sector experience, he’s a very different boss to work for. He’s going to be more inclusive, he’s going to listen to more people. I’m sure he’s a strong leader as he was in the CIA and he was as the president at Texas A&M. He’s got a lot on his plate if you look at the situation that he inherits with Iraq, with Afghanistan, with a global war on terrorism, with defense transformation issues, we’re trying to get more coalition partners to help us in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. He doesn’t have a whole lot of time to solve those problems.

Hopkins: He has a lot on his plate, certainly. Congressman Roemer and Bill Gertz, thank you so much for joining us today.

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