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TNI: What could Gates’s Pentagon leadership mean in terms of intelligence gathering at the Department of Defense and the DOD’s cooperation with the national intelligence director?

FWE: Well, Gates’s appointment is a huge plus in the intelligence department, because, to put it in one pithy sentence, it is really one of the key things that can make this National Intelligence Directorship and the reform of our community work. You could put God Almighty in charge of U.S. national intelligence, and he’s got to have a good relationship with a secretary of defense who understands and supports intelligence. And that is Mr. Gates, par excellence. It is going to be a real plus for intelligence because it’ll put to rest a lot of this nonsense about turf wars between the secretary of defense and the national intelligence director. There’s just no way you can cut that baby in half, and he is the man in the Pentagon that could make that work.

TNI: Is there anything you would like to add on your perspective of Gates?

FWE: Yes indeed. In addition to the intelligence role that he will play, and a definite muting if not elimination of the tensions between the Pentagon and the national intelligence director, he brings two big things to the party. One, he understands big agencies, big programs, lots of people and lots of money—from being the director of central intelligence, being in the national-security business all these years and running a big university. If you’ve ever been in a university faculty or administration, you’d know what I mean. That is really demanding, and he’s evidently done that very well.

But let me underscore a point I made earlier: This is an extremely thoughtful man. He’s got his values, he’s got his principles, you might even say he’s got his ideology. He checks everything. He does not get pushed into decisions on impulse.

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TNI: You mentioned: “you might even say he’s got his ideology.” Is there something in his ideology or in his career experience that would now make him particularly suited to put into effect such a backup plan?

FWE: He’s very realistic, and he’s very committed to the exercise of American power in a thoughtful way, and I think for all those reasons he’s an excellent choice.

TNI: What would you say his ideology is?

FWE: He’s a national security professional. He comes from a camp with which I personally identify. He understands strategic realities such that he’ll know we can’t back out of the situation we have in Iraq, but we can’t stay in it either without behaving very deftly and getting as much support as we can.