Asked if Iraq war was worth it, President Bush's Defense Secretary Gates says, 'I don't know'
 Bush's cabinet has gone off-script.
In an interview with New York Times columnist David Brooks Wednesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was asked if the Iraq war was worth it.
His response: "If I'd known then what I know now, would I have done the same? I think the answer is, 'I don't know.'"
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Excerpts from Brooks' column follow:
After the speech, I asked him about the best ways to spread democracy. �We have a variety of tools. Not all of them are hammers. Ronald Reagan deployed more of the array than many,� he said. Reagan used forceful rhetoric, but also small displays of force � shooting down Libyan jets over the Gulf of Sidra � to demonstrate American resolve.
�I don�t think you invade Iraq to bring liberty. You do it to eliminate an unstable regime and because sanctions are breaking down and you get liberty as a byproduct,� he continued. I asked him whether invading Iraq was a good idea, knowing what we know now. He looked at me for a bit and said, �I don�t know.�
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Gates says there were serious disagreements among the generals about troop levels before the bombing of a revered Shiite mosque in Samarra in February 2006, but not so much now. He initiated various internal reviews of Iraq, and they all came back roughly where Gen. David Petraeus is now.
�How often is a policy announced without a leak from the Pentagon?� he asks, as proof of unanimity.
Over the long term, Gates represents a shift in the foreign policy center of gravity. Over the short term, he is, to use a phrase he borrows from the historian Joseph Ellis, �improvising on the edge of catastrophe.�
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