Redefining "One"

The U.K. Telegraph, not exactly the voice of reason or accuracy when it comes hand-wringing hype of the possibility of war between the United States and Iran, has an amusingly self-contradictory post today by Tim Shipman that claims that U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is "The man who stands between US and new war."

The thrust of the headline and the urderlying premise drummed up by the article is that Gates, and Gates alone, is the sole voice of sanity keeping the U.S. from a bombing campaign of Iran.

Unfortunately, the second half of the editorial (I hope this isn't supposed to be hard news) seems to exist merely to debunk that underlying premise:

Officials say Mr Gates's strategy bore fruit when Admiral William Fallon, the head of US Central Command, charged with devising war plans for Iran, said last month that the "constant drumbeat of war" was not helpful.

He was followed by General George Casey, the army's new chief of staff, who requested an audience with the House of Representatives armed services committee to warn that his branch of the military had been stretched so thin by the Iraq war that it was not prepared for yet another conflict.

Gen Casey told Congress the army was "out of balance" and added: "The demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply. We are consumed with meeting the demands of the current fight, and are unable to provide ready forces as rapidly as necessary for other potential contingencies."

Mr Gates has forged an alliance with Mike McConnell, the national director of intelligence, and Michael Hayden, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, to ensure that Mr Cheney's office is not the dominant conduit of information and planning on Iran to Mr Bush.

The fact that the Army's Chief of Staff Casey, D-CIA Hayden, head of CENTCOM Admiral Fallon, and National Director of Intelligence McConnell have joined Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Defense Gates in advocating that we try other means prior to war, apparently didn't register with Shipman, even as he wrote their names.

A great newspaper, the Independent. They never miss a thing.