What Is This Man Thinking?

And I've got plenty to clean up in my own shop. I'll move quickly whenever I see a dereliction of duty or a failure to measure up to the highest standards of conduct. The conditions at Walter Reed were well past unacceptable. The way we've held prisoners at Guantanamo Bay has also stained our reputation. We need to close it. I don't understand why we keep delaying that decision, or why we refuse to make it clear that we won't violate the Geneva Conventions on torture.

To set a new tone, I'll have to get past the skeptics and cynics among the Pentagon press corps. I won't play word games or dance around tough issues. My motto has been "Make no news," although I did manage to make some when I choked up talking about Maj. Douglas Zembiec, who died in Iraq in May after volunteering for a second combat tour. I hadn't planned on breaking down in public, but it was about time someone showed some emotion about the losses we've suffered without having our manhood or patriotism questioned.

Iraq overshadows everything else these days. Before coming to the Pentagon, I worked side by side with Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton on the Iraq Study Group and saw the mess we've got on our hands -- and the path we need to follow if we're ever going to get out. I didn't agree with all the Baker-Hamilton recommendations, but I still can't understand why President Bush refused to embrace the report, at least in principle. The irony is that he's been implementing most of its recommendations, including talking to Iran about Iraq, but getting no credit for it. Instead of the political consensus we could have had, we've got presidential candidates selling the public their "pick a date" departure tickets out of Iraq.

Everyone understands that we can't succeed in military terms alone. The surge and our new links with Sunni tribal leaders can work for a while in some areas, but unless Iraqi leaders are willing to make some hard political choices, our successes will amount to little more than footprints in the sand. Why wasn't more thought given to how hard all this was going to be before we went in? Some cakewalk this has turned out to be.

Meanwhile, Iran is gloating. The mullahs want us out of Iraq, but not until they bleed us dry and destroy our credibility. But they're making a big mistake if they think they're going to have a free hand in the region if and when we leave Iraq. We'll be in the neighborhood -- maybe even in their back yard.

Iran keeps claiming that all it wants is nuclear energy, but its deceits are obvious, and the pressure is mounting for us to take military action. If diplomacy fails, we may have to consider strikes, but wouldn't it be better if China and Russia helped us out? Our military options aren't enticing. Sure, we could do some real damage to Iran's underground nuclear facilities and set its program back a couple of years. But at what cost? Solidifying Muslim hatred of the United States? Unleashing Iranian-sponsored terrorism against us or our allies? Losing Iraq if Iran unleashes the Shiite militias it's been building up?

And we can't forget al-Qaeda. I need to focus on breaking down the silos that still prevent our intelligence people from connecting all the dots; on pushing the hugely expensive parts of our intelligence apparatus that report to me to play nicely with their comrades out at Langley; on getting NATO to put more troops into Afghanistan; and on pushing Pervez Musharraf to really go after the Taliban in Pakistan. Plus, I need to finish the plan for drawing down our forces in Iraq.

No wonder I didn't ask for this job. But it's mine now. If I do it right, maybe one day we'll be able to say "Mission Accomplished" -- and mean it.

William S. Cohen was secretary of defense from 1997 to 2001. He is chairman and CEO of the Cohen Group.