NATO allies find Gates easier handful than Rumsfeld By Kristin Roberts
Fri Feb 9, 4:01 PM ET
SEVILLE, Spain (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates plunged into NATO diplomacy at his first alliance meeting this week and some European allies pronounced him easier to deal with than his bristly predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld.
The new Pentagon chief, appointed in December to replace Rumsfeld, called on the Europeans to spend more on defense and give more military support to Afghanistan -- a familiar refrain from Washington.
But he delivered those points differently than his predecessor, U.S. and European officials said.
"I found someone who listened," said French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, adding that relations between France and the United States -- often sensitive within the alliance -- had improved.
"The military also tells me that relations have gone back exactly to what they were before the Iraq war."
"It is obvious that it is not the same person, Mr Gates and Mr Rumsfeld," she said.
Gates, a former CIA director, has been widely praised in the United States for adopting a less confrontational tone than Rumsfeld, the architect of an unpopular war who has been blamed by his critics for damaging U.S. relations with other countries.
This week's gathering of NATO defense ministers was Gates' first run at multilateral negotiations since he took up his new job and U.S. officials said the European counterparts appeared to be using bilateral sessions to size him up.
He was due to meet privately with 17 defense ministers in Spain and at a security conference in Munich this weekend.
"It's a bit more than normal because everyone wants to meet the new guy," said one U.S. official traveling with Gates.
Gates, who studied the Soviet Union as a CIA analyst, said he was still adapting to his new "diplomatic" role and that he was not trying to differentiate himself from Rumsfeld.
"I suppose as an old Kremlinologist it shouldn't surprise me, but the level of effort devoted to trying to figure out the degree to which I am trying to differentiate myself from my predecessor is sort of amusing," he told reporters Friday before leaving Seville for Munich.
"I'm going to say what I think and people can draw their own conclusions in terms of whether I'm trying to differentiate or take a different tack as Secretary Rumsfeld," he said. "I'm not consciously doing so." |
