Senate leaders backs Rumfield's replacement

Robert Gates, picked by President George Bush to take over from US secretary of state Donald Rumsfeld, received initial endorsements from Republican and Democratic Senate leaders after a meeting on Capitol Hill.

Gates’ private one-on-one discussions last night with top politicians were in anticipation of a December 5 confirmation hearing by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The Bush administration and top Republican senators hope to approve the nomination next month, while the Senate is still in Republican hands.

Senate approval of Gates would be an early test of a promise by some politicians to work together after the November 7 elections that gave the Democrats control of Congress, and reach bipartisan consensus on the war in Iraq.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said former CIA director Gates, 63, should be confirmed in the next few weeks, barring surprises. After meeting with the Republican nominee, Reid suggested Gates’ most attractive trait was that he was not outgoing Rumsfeld, who sparred with Democrats and some Republicans over Iraq.

“The one thing he has going for him ... is that we want the change to take place very quickly,” said Reid. “So it’s to our interest to have this change at the head of the Defence Department as soon as possible.”

The day after the election, Bush acknowledged that the lack of progress in Iraq had cost Republicans votes. In a bid to salvage public support, Bush said he would consider new ideas on Iraq and announced Rumsfeld’s resignation.

Aides and politicians said Iraq was obviously a topic of discussion in Gates’ meetings, but that the visit was intended more as a courtesy call than an in-depth exchange of ideas.

“One of the highest priorities, if not the highest priority, will be looking at the situation in Iraq,” Gates said after meeting Republican Senator John Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

When asked whether there was a bipartisan solution to ending the war, Gates said: “I think I’ll wait until the hearings to answer that question.”

Gates was serving as a member of an independent, blue-ribbon panel assessing options in Iraq when Bush asked him to replace Rumsfeld as Pentagon chief.