In My Time - Dick Cheney [234]
We needed to be working hand in glove with them, as we trained their forces and helped them carry out what should be a coordinated effort. General Casey agreed that we needed to continue to manage the relationship with the Shia very carefully.
TEN DAYS LATER, ON October 31, 2006, after the president and I had finished our morning briefings in the Oval Office, he said, “Dick, can I talk to you for a second?” We went down the small hallway that leads to the private dining room where we held our weekly lunches. “I’ve decided to make a change at Defense,” the president said, “and I’m looking at Bob Gates to replace Rumsfeld.” He was informing me of his decision, not soliciting my views. He already knew them, since twice before I had argued against replacing Rumsfeld. Just after the 2004 election, when he reviewed the entire cabinet and decided to move Powell out at State, he also considered moving Rumsfeld out at Defense. I made the case that Rumsfeld was doing a tremendous job, that he was carrying out administration policy, and that replacing him would signal dissatisfaction with the strategy the president himself had set. I’d made the same arguments in 2005 when the issue came up again.
This time the president didn’t wait around after he told me he had made up his mind. He turned and was out the door fast. He knew I’d be opposed, and I suspect he didn’t want to hear the arguments he knew I’d make.
In my view Don Rumsfeld was a formidable secretary of defense. He engaged more directly in managing the building than any before or since. He got things done. Maybe he didn’t have the best bedside manner in the world, but he is one of the most competent people I’ve ever met. He brought vast experience, endless energy, and total loyalty to the president to the job. He would argue passionately for what he believed in, but once the president made a decision, he would salute smartly and make it happen.
But it was clear that the president thought it was time for a fresh set of eyes on the situation in Iraq, and I didn’t think Don would disagree. He had come to see me in March 2006 to make sure I knew that he would do whatever he could to help ensure our success in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was very specific with me—he was prepared, he said, to step down anytime the president believed he should.
On Sunday, November 5, I was working in the upstairs family room at the Vice President’s Residence when I took a call from the president. He said he’d offered the secretary of defense job to Bob Gates, and Gates had accepted. “Dick, would you like to be the one to tell Don, or should I ask Josh Bolten to make the call?” he asked. “I’ll do it, Mr. President,” I said. “I owe Don an awful lot and he should hear the news from me.”
When I reached him and told him that the president had decided he wanted to make a change at Defense, Don handled it like the consummate professional he is. “Okay. I got it,” he said. Then he repeated something he’d told me before, that he had been giving serious thought to resigning if the Democrats managed to take the House or the Senate in the upcoming election. “I’m just too much of a target,” he said. He worried that if Democrats won a majority in either house, he would be forced to spend all his time testifying and justifying the decisions of the last five and a half years, rather than focusing on the challenges we still faced. We had critically important work to do, and Don was concerned his staying on could diminish our ability to do it.
LATE IN THE AFTERNOON of November 9, the president, Steve Hadley, Secretary Rice, and I met in the White House residence for an in-depth discussion about the way forward in Iraq. We had a wide-ranging conversation that covered the global implications for the United States and our allies if we failed to see things through. Two days earlier, on November 7, we had lost our Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate, and we also talked about the U.S. political environment and the message being sent