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Tavis: William Cohen's 30-plus year career in public service dates back to his time in the House and Senate from Maine. He'd go on to serve as President Clinton's Secretary of Defense in the late nineties. He is now chairman and CEO of the Cohen Group, based in Washington. In today's 'New York Times,' he offers up some advice for the Senate Armed Services Committee, which begins hearings tomorrow on the nomination of Robert Gates to replace Donald Rumsfeld. Secretary Cohen, nice to have you back on the program, sir.

William Cohen: Tavis, great to be with you again.

Tavis: There is so much to talk to you about, so much news (laugh) over the last 24-48 hours. Let me start, though, right there. Your piece today in 'The New York Times' about what Mr. Gates ought to be asked about, what these hearings ought to be about. The word is that he will likely be approved before the Senate adjourns in a week or so, so that would be this week, I suspect. Tell me, though, what you think they ought to focus on with regard to Mr. Gates' nomination hearings.

Cohen: Well, first Mr. Gates has a real tough job ahead of him. It's one thing to have a four year time span in which to think about what you're going to do with the Defense Department, two years is not very long. And that two year time frame is gonna be dominated by Iraq, Iran, and to some extent also North Korea.

So the first thing I think they have to focus on, in terms of what would be his recommendation based upon the fact that he served on the Baker-Lee Hamilton Commission and only recently got off, what does he feel needs to be done and should be done, in terms of trying to find a way to leave Iraq, and leave Iraq in a way that is relatively stable.

So that will be question number one, I'm sure. In addition, there are gonna be people like Senator Carl Levin and others who voted against him for confirmation back at a time when he was up for CIA director, based on, quote, some allegation about involvement in Iran Contra, and whether he was shading intelligent. Those kind of questions will come up. I don't think they'll be involvement in Iran Contra, and whether he was shading intelligent. Those kind of questions will come up. I don't think they'll be (unintelligible.)

I think that Senator Levin and others wanna get answers. Is he going to really talk truth to power, and not in any way shape the policies of the Pentagon to conform to a political objective, but rather what's the best military advice he can pass on, in terms of policy objectives, and combining that with military strategy. The third thing you're gonna get hit with pretty quickly is what about the budget?

We are spending roughly 450-plus billion dollars a year on the defense budget, not counting the supplementals. The supplementals are something outside the normal budget process, and that's roughly 80 billion-plus a year. And it's even double that, I think, for the proposal for the coming year. And that is to fund most of it going to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now the question becomes, in that budget, you are under-funded for all of these procurement or weapons systems. What are you gonna cut, or how do you intend to pay for them? So those'll be the kinds of questions that he's likely to get.

Tavis: I recognize, Secretary Cohen, that a changing of the guard does not necessarily equate to a change on the ground. That said, I can't imagine that Mr. Gates could be anywhere near, in terms of style and strategy, anywhere near Secretary Rumsfeld. So given what you know of the man, what's your sense about his tenure over these tumultuous two years will be?

Cohen: Well, Tavis, you're correct. You can change personnel, but if you don't have a change of policy, coming from the President of the United States - after all, he's the one who's elected to set the policy. He gets his advice, certainly coming from his Cabinet heads. But you can change personnel, but if the president is determined on a fixed policy, then nothing much will change from where it is.

Now, Bob Gates, from my experience with him, is a very competent individual. He'll be a good manager. He's very low key. He will not be as controversial, to be sure, as Secretary Rumsfeld. But I think he's going to come forward with a recommendation comparable to what the Baker-Hamilton Commission report's gonna recommend. And it turns out, ironically enough, that Secretary Rumsfeld, in a very controversial memo, issued this about a day or so before he departed.

Saying it's not working in Iraq, and here are the 10 or 20 things that need to be considered by you, Mr. President. So I think that Bob Gates will say, "Mr. President, here are some things we need to look at in terms of how we can stabilize Iraq, start downsizing as reasonably quickly as possible."

Tavis: Let me ask you a couple questions about this Iraq study group, to your point now about whether or not the president is prepared to change policy. The first question is whether or not too much ado is being made of what this report is going to say. For one, you ain't gotta wait till Wednesday. Read 'The New York Times.' Every day, they're putting out what the report is about to say.

And as I read it, it's another one of those bipartisan reports that really doesn't push anybody too hard, doesn't offer an assessment of blame, doesn't say here's where we made mistakes. It's another bipartisan report. And sometimes I wonder whether or not too much is made of bipartisanship in Washington around matters critical to the American public like these.

Cohen: Well, when it comes to national security, and I would say in the intelligence field, as well, the one place you really don't wanna have a partisan split is in the field of national security. Because we've got kids, our men and women who are boys and girls, basically, who are over there dying and being blown apart. And the one thing you wanna try and do is say, 'Can we come together as a Congress, as a country, come up with a policy we can all, or most of us, get behind."

Because we owe it to them. They're over there bleeding and doing their job, and bless them for what they do, but I think that if you're on top of national security, the one place you really wanna focus on reducing the political aspects of it is here. Now, I think you also make a valid point, however. Don't water something down so it's so weak that nothing ever happens.

And in this particular case, I think what's going to happen, aside from the rhetoric itself, I think expectations have been raised way too high. There are no good options left. This is a way of packaging probably the best of the worst of the options. And that is to say we have to have a regional approach, we have to start talking to some of the other countries in the region.

We have to have a much different and much broader consensus, both in this country and also certainly over in the region. But I don't think you're gonna see any major breakthroughs. I think what it'll do, Tavis, is probably buy about four months, four, six at the outside, to say that you will hold the Democrats together with this commission report before the politics really set in, and there's a demand made to start moving out of Iraq more quickly.

Tavis: Let me ask you what you make, to your point now, of what the options will be, and what the strategy will be, given that unlike weeks ago, we now have or are about to have a divided government in Washington.

Cohen: I think what the commission or the study group will recommend is that we try to - I don't wanna use this phrase stay the course. We try to continue for a little bit longer to see whether or not this policy of increasing the training of the Iraqi security forces will bear any fruit. Again, they're talking about six months. I don't think it'll last that long. I think the Democrats, they've been burned once, so to speak, in terms of they supported this effort.

They're gonna be very leery of making too long a commitment to continuing this support for the policy as it currently exists, intensifying it possibly in the short term. But they wanna see it start to be reduced. At the other end of the spectrum, you've got Senator McCain and others who feel that really, you need to increase substantially the forces on the ground.

The difficulty is we don't either have the forces ready to go, and we can't seem to persuade our friends and allies that they should contribute. So I think what you'll see is a four-month period of Democrats supporting this effort, and then you'll start to see the politics come in, and Democrats breaking away from it.

Tavis: Speaking of the politics coming in, I'm curious to see your point of view on this. What do you make of the fact that with all the resources the president has available to him, secondly he is, in fact, the Commander In Chief. And if I were a cynic, I'd say, 'There's something wrong with the president having to be told by an Iraq study group what his best options are. Hey, you're the leader here. (Laugh) You're the guy we elected, not the study group."

Cohen: Well actually, this was a study group that wasn't created by him or asked for, requested by him. This was created by Congress.

Tavis: Exactly.

Cohen: And it was designed to say, 'Let's have an outside look at this." But you're precisely correct. It's the president as Commander-in-Chief who we charge with the responsibility to say, 'What's the policy? How is it being executed? And if it's not being executed, let's try something different." He doesn't need, in fact, he doesn't want this study group, as far as I can see.

But I think it's a fait accompli now. It's gonna be submitted to the Congress. They will rally behind it, for the most part, with some criticism. But they'll rally behind it, saying let's give this support a little bit longer, and then we'll see where we go.

Tavis: So if the Iraq study group wasn't making news, and the president's recent travels weren't making news, now we hear today that Ambassador Bolton has resigned his post at the U.N., fearing that he was not going to be confirmed another time around. What do you make of that resignation, and how does that factor into U.S. foreign policy at the moment?

Cohen: Well, President Bush was prepared to fight for Mr. Bolton to get him confirmed. When it became obvious that he was not going to get that nomination out of committee, then I think it was a pretty foregone conclusion at that point that he'd be expending capital that he doesn't have or can't afford to use at this point. So, I think it was Mr. Bolton who said "Let's not dance through these hoops, it isn't gonna pay off."

But the president will at this point have an opportunity to pick someone that can enjoy, again, bipartisan support. Pick somebody that Democrats as well as Republicans will say, 'That person can do a good job, and will reflect well upon the President of the United States." So there's an opportunity here to seize this out of defeat, so to speak, and make a success out of it.

Tavis: So finally, what ought the president do when he gets this report, with regard to trying to say to America and to the world, we hear you, we realize that we've made some mistakes, although I don't expect him to say that verbatim. But what ought his approach be once he gets this report, with regard to a change of policy?

Cohen: I think he has to convey a sense of sincerity that he's listening, he's hearing, and he's prepared to make some changes. So thus far it's been, I understand we've gotta make some changes, and yet the action has not measured out to that. So I think he's gotta be sincere, saying the elections are important, and yes, I wanna take that into account. But I also want to try and be as open and responsive as I can, even though as Commander In Chief, I still feel this is my course of action.

I'm prepared to work with the key members of the Hill, understanding we have, as you said, a divided government now. We need to have the support of key leaders, and he has to make a good faith effort to do that. Hopefully, he will.

Tavis: Former Secretary of Defense, former Congressman, former Senator, (laugh) and now the chairman of the Cohen Group. He's done it all, and now running his own operation in Washington. Mr. Cohen, as always, nice to have you on, sir.

Cohen: Tavis, great to be with you.

Tavis: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Up next on this program, Grammy-winning singer Natalie Cole. Stay with us.