MUNICH, Germany (AP) -- Pentagon chief Robert Gates responded Sunday to Vladimir Putin's assault on U.S. foreign policy by saying "one Cold War is enough" and that he would go to Moscow to try to reduce tensions. Gates also sought more allied help in Afghanistan.
He delivered his first speech as Pentagon chief at a security conference in Germany and then flew to Pakistan to discuss fears of a renewed spring offensive by Taliban fighters in neighboring Afghanistan.
Pakistan, a close U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism, has faced charges that the Taliban militia stage attacks from Pakistan against Afghan government troops and NATO- and U.S.-led coalition troops.
Gates' rebuke of the Russian president relied on humor and some pointed jabs.
"As an old Cold Warrior, one of yesterday's speeches almost filled me with nostalgia for a less complex time. Almost," Gates said. Then, as the audience chuckled, the defense secretary said he has accepted Putin's invitation to visit Russia.
"We all face many common problems and challenges that must be addressed in partnership with other countries, including Russia," said Gates. "One Cold War was quite enough."
In his speech Saturday, Putin blamed U.S. foreign policy for inciting other countries to seek nuclear weapons to defend themselves from an "almost uncontained use of military force."
The Russian leader said "unilateral, illegitimate actions have not solved a single problem, they have become a hotbed of further conflicts" and that "one state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way."
Gates also made an urgent call for NATO allies to live up to their promises to supply military and economic aid for Afghanistan.
"It is vitally important that the success Afghanistan has achieved not be allowed to slip away through neglect or lack of political will or resolve," Gates said. Failure to muster a strong military effort combined with economic development and a counternarcotics plan "would be a mark of shame," he said.
Gates also said that prisoner abuse scandals in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other mistakes have damaged America's reputation. It will take work, he said, to prove that the U.S. still is a force for good in the world.
While he did not mention the war in Iraq, Gates told officials at the security conference that Washington must do a better job of explaining its policies and actions.
For the past century, he said, most people believed that "while we might from time to time do something stupid, that we were a force for good in the world."
Many continue to believe that, Gates said. But, he added, "I think we also have made some mistakes and have not presented our case as well as we might in many instances. I think we have to work on that."
The bulk of his speech was devoted to the future of the NATO alliance and the need to work together to defend against threats.
Gates also sketched out the challenges ahead, from Iran's nuclear ambitions and the situation in the Middle East to China's recent anti-satellite tests and Russia's arms sales.
Just eight weeks on the job, Gates used the conference and a NATO gathering this past week to debut on the international stage and meet privately with some of his counterparts.
In other comments, he said the Bush administration would like to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, but there are some terrorists there who should never be let free. Gates also said detainee trials there will be conducted in the open and with adequate defense for the prisoners.
The first public test of Gates' diplomatic skills came at a venue that at times was dominated by his more bombastic Pentagon predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld.
So as Gates neared the end of his remarks, he made a deliberate move to separate himself from Rumsfeld.
In the run-up to the Iraq war, Rumsfeld sharply criticized nations opposed to the conflict - specifically France and Germany - and referred to them as part of "Old Europe."
Without mentioning Rumsfeld's name, Gates said some people have tried to divide the allies along lines such as East and West, North and South.
"I'm even told that some have even spoken in terms of 'old' Europe versus 'new,'" Gates said. "All of these characterizations belong in the past."
In Pakistan, Gates planned talks with the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf and other top officials on cooperation in counterterrorism and efforts by Pakistan to stop militants from moving across the border with Afghanistan, a senior Pakistani government official said Sunday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not have the authority to speak formally about Gates' visit.
Pakistan denies the charges that the Taliban are staging attacks from inside Pakistan and says it has deployed some 80,000 troops along its rugged border with Afghanistan to track down militants.
Pakistan's border regions along Afghanistan long have been suspected to be the hiding places for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri.
American forces in eastern Afghanistan have launched artillery rounds into Pakistan to strike Taliban fighters who attack remote U.S. outposts, the commander of U.S. forces in the region told The Associated Press on Sunday.
Musharraf acknowledged recently that his outgunned Pakistani frontier guards have allowed insurgents to cross the border and said the army soon would fence parts of the border to stem the problem.
The Pentagon has plans to extend its recent buildup of several thousand combat troops in Afghanistan, initially announced as lasting until late spring, well into next year, a senior U.S. military official said last week.
That move would keep U.S. troop levels at between 26,000 and 27,000 until at least the spring of 2008.
---
Associated Press writers Sadaqat Jan in Islamabad, Pakistan, and Robert Burns at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
not a rumor>>>363 tons of $12b u.s. currency just shipped to iraq,are making the democrats crazy about bush strategy. why send this cash to a war torn nation?
U.S. Sent Giant Pallets of Cash Into Iraq Reuters Limited 12:52 a.m. EST, February 7, 2007
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The Federal Reserve sent record payouts of more than $4 billion in cash to Baghdad on giant pallets aboard military planes shortly before the United States gave control back to Iraqis, lawmakers said Tuesday.
The money, which had been held by the United States, came from Iraqi oil exports, surplus dollars from the U.N.-run oil-for-food program and frozen assets belonging to the ousted Saddam Hussein regime.
Bills weighing a total of 363 tons were loaded onto military aircraft in the largest cash shipments ever made by the Federal Reserve, said Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. (Watch Democrats put the former top U.S. official in Iraq on the spot )
"Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone? But that's exactly what our government did," the California Democrat said during a hearing reviewing possible waste, fraud and abuse of funds in Iraq.
On December 12, 2003, $1.5 billion was shipped to Iraq, initially "the largest pay out of U.S. currency in Fed history," according to an e-mail cited by committee members.
It was followed by more than $2.4 billion on June 22, 2004, and $1.6 billion three days later. The CPA turned over sovereignty on June 30.
Bremer: Cash requested by Iraqis L. Paul Bremer, who as the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority ran Iraq after initial combat operations ended, said the enormous shipments were done at the request of the Iraqi minister of finance.
"He said, 'I am concerned that I will not have the money to support the Iraqi government expenses for the first couple of months after we are sovereign. We won't have the mechanisms in place, I won't know how to get the money here,"' Bremer said.
"So these shipments were made at the explicit request of the Iraqi minister of finance to forward fund government expenses, a perfectly, seems to me, legitimate use of his money," Bremer told lawmakers.
Democrats led by Waxman also questioned whether the lack of oversight of $12 billion in Iraqi money that was disbursed by Bremer and the CPA somehow enabled insurgents to get their hands on the funds, possibly through falsifying names on the government payroll.
"I have no knowledge of monies being diverted. I would certainly be concerned if I thought they were," Bremer said. He pointed out that the problem of fake names on the payroll existed before the U.S.-led invasion. (Watch Waxman outline questions and Bremer respond )
The special inspector general for Iraqi reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, said in a January 2005 report that $8.8 billion was unaccounted for after being given to the Iraqi ministries.
"We were in the middle of a war, working in very difficult conditions, and we had to move quickly to get this Iraqi money working for the Iraqi people," Bremer told lawmakers. He said there was no banking system and it would have been impossible to apply modern accounting standards in the midst of a war.
Republicans argued that Bremer and the CPA staff did the best they could under the circumstances and accused Democrats of trying to score political points over the increasingly unpopular Iraq war.
"We are in a war against terrorists, to have a blame meeting isn't, in my opinion, constructive," said Rep. Dan Burton, an Indiana Republican.
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