Former defense secretary Gates describes anger at partisanship
WSU News Services
The following is an excerpt from a March 30 Wichita Eagle story about former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who will speak at Wichita State on Monday.
There were times that Robert Gates wanted to come across the conference tables and scream at members of Congress.
Robert Gates
They let down soldiers, including the thousands who died. He thought they sometimes put partisanship ahead of soldiers. They mocked Iraqi parliamentarians who resorted to violence after only a year of democracy, when more than 200 years of democracy hadn’t seemed to teach members of the U.S. Congress to pass an appropriations budget.
Gates was a leader so nonpartisan and effective that he was U.S. secretary of defense for both Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama. A Wichita native, Gates will return home Monday to speak at Wichita State University about his book "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War."
