PETERSON AFB, Colo. (AP) - In his 1 1/2 years as Pentagon chief, Robert Gates has made a mark by sacking leaders of the military services at a pace not seen before in the modern era of the U.S. military.

His acts of accountability stand out in a Bush administration that has not enjoyed a reputation for holding senior officials - military or otherwise - to account when they fall short of meeting certain standards.

Soon after Gates replaced Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary in December 2006 he forced Army Secretary Francis Harvey to resign, saying Harvey had not acted swiftly or boldly in response to revelations of shoddy care for wounded war veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

In his six years leading the Pentagon, Rumsfeld fired only one top service official: Thomas White, the Army secretary, who had crossed Rumsfeld on issues relating to modernizing Army forces. In 2003 Rumsfeld weakened Gen. Eric Shinseki, then the Army chief of staff, but he did not remove him.

Gates is adamant in cautioning against equating his firing decisions with a lack of support for the overall performance of the military, including the Air Force, which he essentially decapitated by ousting its top civilian official, Michael Wynne, and its top uniformed officer, Gen. Michael Moseley, on the same day last week.

But he also leaves little room for doubt that when it comes to issues like those that brought down Moseley and Wynne - mainly a failure to reverse a record of shortcomings in the Air Force’s nuclear mission - he will not hesitate.

“There is simply no room for error in this mission,” he told airmen at Langley Air Force Base, Va., on Monday just hours after he announced in Washington his choices to succeed Wynne and Moseley.

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Pentagon chief making mark as enforcer of accountability

How many times have you heard that one? How many times did you see it happen? To subordinate officers and perhaps a few high ranking NCOs that were designated to fall on their sword and take one for the team maybe. How many times, up until now, have you seen it happen to the top layer at the Pentagon?

I have long accused George Bush of micromanaging the war in Iraq, HIS war, and my opinion of that will never change, but perhaps his micromanagement was a necessary thing, Rumsfeld was not the brightest bulb on the string, not by a long shot, maybe Bush was left with no choice until Robert Gates took control.

Perhaps the Iraq war would have been prosecuted differently had Gates been SecDef, as opposed to Rumsfeld, Lord knows it couldn’t have been handled any worse, VICTORY was never the real issue for me, VICTORY in Iraq was, in my estimation, a given, the day the U.S. military can’t totally defeat a force like that of Saddam Hussein is the day that this nation is done for, we took a plus 1 in the win column, our troops did the job they were sent to do, they deposed Saddam and routed the Iraqi army, thus, VICTORY was achieved.

Had Sec. Gates been SecDef at that time, maybe we wouldn’t have blown the PEACE.

Keep on kicking ass and taking names Mr. Secretary, someone has to hold the behemoth that is the Department of Defense together, someone has to hold their feet to the fire and demand full accountability, that someone appears to be you, and all I can say is, good job so far and it’s about time that someone from the Bush administration exhibited this brand of definitive leadership.

Let me ask the readers this question, what do any of you think will happen to the DoD and our military if Obama becomes president? If you think the Clinton presidency raped the military and Intelligence forces, just stand by and watch, because you ain’t seen nothing yet!