Gates to stay?
The New York Times, citing “Democrats close to the transition,” is reporting that U.S. President-elect Barack Obama will ask Robert Gates to stay on as defense secretary. Meanwhile, John Brennan, thought to be in the running for CIA director, withdrew his name from consideration. Here’s the Times’ Peter Baker: The developments came as Mr. Obama ...
The New York Times, citing "Democrats close to the transition," is reporting that U.S. President-elect Barack Obama will ask Robert Gates to stay on as defense secretary. Meanwhile, John Brennan, thought to be in the running for CIA director, withdrew his name from consideration.
The New York Times, citing “Democrats close to the transition,” is reporting that U.S. President-elect Barack Obama will ask Robert Gates to stay on as defense secretary. Meanwhile, John Brennan, thought to be in the running for CIA director, withdrew his name from consideration.
Here’s the Times’ Peter Baker:
The developments came as Mr. Obama prepared to begin unveiling his national security next week after the Thanksgiving holiday. He has already reached an informal agreement with Hillary Rodham Clinton to become secretary of state and advisers expect him to appoint retired Gen. James L. Jones, a former Marine commandant and NATO supreme commander, as his national security adviser.
Other frontrunners have emerged in recent days, including retired Adm. Dennis Blair for director of national intelligence, former assistant secretary of state Susan E. Rice for ambassador to the United Nations, former deputy national security adviser James B. Steinberg for deputy secretary of state and former State Department official Thomas Donilon for deputy national security adviser.
The usual caveats apply, but the reporting on this seems pretty solid and widely shared. ABC News, which first broke the Gates story, quoted a source as saying his return was “a done deal.”
Assuming the Gates reappointment, at least, is for real, I think it’s a great move. The military is extremely wary of Obama, and keeping Gates will assuage many that their new commander-in-chief is hardly some kind of closet radical — to say nothing of the fact that Gates has done a great job managing Iraq and sending useful signals about U.S. intentions to Iran. Having him oversee the delicate process of winding down the U.S. presence in Iraq and cranking up the war effort in Afghanistan will be key. This is a lack of change I can believe in.
Photo: Haraz N. Ghanbari-Pool/Getty Images
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