Gates to stay at Pentagon
US: President-elect Barack Obama will keep Defense Secretary Robert
Gates in that job for at least a year, according to an official familiar
the two men’s discussions.
Obama is expected to announce the selection of Gates and other
members of a national security brain trust next week. Gates has served
as President George W. Bush’s defense chief for two years.
Gates, a moderate with long-standing ties to Republican
administrations and the Bush family, would fulfill an Obama pledge to
include a Republican in his Cabinet. Retaining Gates provides stability
for a stretched military fighting two wars during the turbulent
changeover in administrations.
But the 65-year-old former spymaster had recently turned mum in
public on the circumstances under which he would stay, even briefly, in
an Obama administration.
Keeping Gates might afford Obama a sort of extended transition, in
which critical military issues are left in trusted hands while Obama
focuses most intensely on the financial crisis.
CHICAGO, Wednesday, AP |