Welcome, this is Anastasia Yuglova bringing you the Cato Daily Podcast.

Be sure to log on to our website

W.W. dot kato.org for a full archive of our podcast as well as many other

audio offerings.

In a stunning announcement yesterday, President Bush declared that Secretary of Defense

Donald Rumsfeld would be stepping down.

If confirmed by the Senate, former CIA Director Robert Gates, who served under President

George H.W. Bush, will take over. What prompted the sudden change of direction?

Christopher Preble, Director of Foreign Policy Studies, comments.

Just last week while campaigning, Bush said that Rumsfeld would serve at the end of his term.

What happened?

Well I think the president wants to demonstrate that he is open to new ideas, particularly

new ideas on Iraq, and clearly Secretary Rumsfeld was one of the most outspoken defenders of the current policy.

So replacing Rumsfeld or asking for his resignation, whatever, has the effect of showing

that the president is at least open to new ideas.

Now this doesn't mean necessarily that he's going to change course,

but I think in the short term it's a pretty easy way

for him to show his kind of openness to new ideas.

And in fairness, he is open to new ideas.

I think it is significant that it was Gates that was chosen to replace Rumsfeld.

Gates is very close, we know, to the first President Bush and also to James Baker and we know that James Baker is likely

to issue a report soon making some recommendation for what to do with Iraq.

...