Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has stepped down, according to news reports, one day after Democrats gained one and possibly two houses of Congress in an election largely viewed as a referendum on President George W. Bush s Iraq policy. Rumsfeld was a highly contentious figure in the Bush administration, after several books and news stories portrayed the defense department s planning for Iraq as severely inadequate. Earlier this week, the Army Times, Navy Times, Marine Times, and Air Force Times newspapers, widely read by members of the military, called in an editorial for Rumsfeld s resignation. NBC news reported that Bush will nominate Robert Gates, the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to replace Rumsfeld. Gates is presently the president of Texas A&M University, and an ally of Bush s father, President George H.W. Bush, along with former Secretary of State James Baker and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, all of whom were critical of the Bush administration s decision to invade and occupy Iraq. The decision implies that the Bush administration is shifting to a policy more akin to the realist wing of the Republican party, characterized by Bush s father, and away from the neoconservative wing, which pushed for war in Iraq.
