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Q (Name inaudible.) Mr. Secretary, thank you for being with us. I have a question that may not be your favorite subject. You were on the Iraq Study Group. (Inaudible) -- and the other members sought quite assiduously to follow up in terms of implementation and general acceptance. The view around this town is not so friendly on what has been done by the way of follow up. What do you believe should be done in terms of what hasn't been done? Is there something else that has changed that needs to be focused on in terms of attention on this very difficult question? And is there a role in this process that most of us haven't seen yet for diplomacy, as the study group pointed out, particularly in connection to the region?

SEC. GATES: Well, there are two things. I need to decipher which one you're talking about. Lee and Kean headed the 9/11 commission, and that's the one --

Q I'm sorry, my apologies.

SEC. GATES: So are you talking about Lee and Jim Baker and the Iraq Study Group?

Q Yes, sir. Pardon me.

SEC. GATES: Okay. Well, I think that -- I mean, there was some interest in trying to get some follow up on that. But I think it just didn't get off the ground for whatever set of reasons, unlike the 9/11 commission which really was vigorous afterward in trying to make sure people were following up.

The reality is, I think, most of the recommendations of the group are in fact being followed. And if you read the report carefully, you'll even see that there was a recommendation in there for a surge. And the original recommendations were actually much larger than the president eventually did.

I think that the one area where the Iraq Study Group recommendations have not been followed up is in terms of reaching out the Iranians. And I would just tell you I've gone through kind of an evolution on this myself. I co-chaired with Zbig a Council on Foreign Relations study on U.S. policy toward Iran, in 2004. But we were looking at a different Iran in many respects. We were looking at an Iran where Khatami was the president. We were looking at an Iran where their behavior in Iraq actually was fairly ambivalent in 2004. They were doing some things that were not helpful, but they were also doing some things that were helpful.

And one of the questions that I think historians will have to take a look at is whether there was a missed opportunity at that time. But with the election of Ahmadinejad and the very unambiguous role that Iran is playing in a negative sense in Iraq today, you know, I sort of sign up with Tom Friedman's column today. We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage with respect to the Iranians and then sit down and talk with them. If there's going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander with them not feeling that they need anything from us.

I think that my own view, just my personal view, would be we ought to look for ways outside of government to open up the channels and get more of a flow of people back and forth. There are actually a fair number of Iranians that come to the United States to visit. We ought to increase the flow going the other way, not of Iranians but of Americans. And I think that may be one opening that creates some space, perhaps, over some period of time.

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