Bush's Pentagon nominee no stranger to contention

WASHINGTON, Nov 9: Robert Gates, President Bush's new nominee as US Secretary of Defense, is no stranger to controversy on Capitol Hill. His last nomination, for CIA chief in 1991, produced a grueling though ultimately successful confirmation battle.

But some who voted against him before -- in part to protest what they said was his selective memory about past scandal -- said yesterday they were willing to consider his qualifications to replace Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon.

''I'm going to give it a fair and fresh look,'' said Michigan Sen Carl Levin, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, which is expected to consider the nomination soon.

Gates, 63, who directed the CIA from 1991-93, was first nominated as CIA director in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan but withdrew amid questions over his and the CIA's role in the secret sales of arms to Iran and the diversion of profits to Nicaragua's contra rebels.

In Senate hearings in 1991, when Gates was renominated as CIA chief by Bush's father, he admitted mistakes in what became known as the ''Iran-Contra'' affair and said he should have done more to get at the truth. The Senate confirmed him 64-31.

Levin opposed Gates 15 years ago. ''I think it had to do, in part, with his recollection, or failure of recollection on Iran-Contra,'' Levin said in telephone call with reporters.

But ''a lot of time has passed,'' Levin said. ''His views and recollections may have become sharper or they may have changed and I want to consider those views in a very fair way.'' Sen Joe Biden, a Delaware Democrat who also opposed Gates in 1991, said he had done so to make a point about how the Reagan administration had ''politicised'' intelligence.

Beyond charges that he hid the truth about the Iran-Contra affair from Congress when that scandal was breaking in the 1980s, Gates in 1991 overcame potentially disqualifying claims that he skewed intelligence reports in the 1980s to suit the Reagan administration's hardline anti-Soviet views.

Biden said today, ''this is a different job'' and he was inclined to support Gates this time, partly because it was important to ''move on pretty quickly'' on the Iraq problem. Gates has recently been deeply involved in bipartisan discussions on a way forward in Iraq as member of Iraq Study Group headed by former Secretary of State James Baker.

A veteran cold warrior who has a doctorate in Soviet history, Gates also has some Capitol Hill friends from the old days. Sen John Warner, Virginia Republican and chairman of the Armed Services panel, said Bush had made a wise choice, recalling working with Gates when he was at the CIA and Warner was on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

''I got to know him quite well. We worked on complicated issues with regard to Afghanistan, Soviet Union, fall of the Berlin Wall which eventually came about,'' Warner said.

Warner said the outgoing Senate would expedite the confirmation process, trying to get it done by year's end. Much early reaction to Gates' nomination was cautiously positive.

''He strikes me as a pragmatist, somebody who will listen to the uniformed services. I suspect in that way he will be a very pleasant change from Secretary Rumsfeld,'' said Sen Jack Reed, a West Point graduate, Armed Services panel member and Rhode Island Democrat.

But rushing into the confirmation process now caught flak from Democrat James Webb, Navy secretary under Reagan, who was leading Virginia Sen. George Allen in Tuesday's election results. ''I believe that the new Senate should be the body that examines Bob Gates' qualifications for confirmation,'' Webb said.

REUTERS