Defense Secretary Robert Gates Urges Congress to Fund State Department Programs in Iraq

May 12, 2011 - Transcript (CBS News - http://bit.ly/jIfjxf):

Gates told us the U.S. military surge - the much debated and criticized deployment of 30,000 additional troops to Iraq - turned the situation around.

"I think, had we left here with our tail between our legs and with chaos, it would have been very bad for our army and for our military," he explained.
But Gates warns it could all fall apart after the scheduled American withdrawal at the end of the year. And as he took one of his last helicopter rides over Baghdad, he urged the U.S. Congress to fund State Department programs in Iraq after the U.S. military leaves.

"My worry is that we'll be pennywise and pound foolish. That we will have spent hundreds of billions, maybe a trillion dollars here, over 4,000 lives, 30,000 wounded. We're on the two-yard line and I'd hate to see us not get across the goal line. And, it's the State Department that's gonna take us across the goal line."

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