Obama Gives Retiring Gates Medal of Freedom

A look back at the retiring defense secretary's career

(NEWSER) - With Robert Gates, who has served eight presidents over four decades, about to retire, the Washington Post looks back at how Gates operated in the Pentagon. He’s been “careful, conservative, and consensus-oriented,” writes Greg Jaffe, and he’s “earned a reputation as the most ruthlessly efficient defense secretary in decades.” So what can we learn from his tenure?

• Buy time. Defense Department reviews following troop surges in Iraq and Afghanistan gave Presidents Bush and Obama a sense of the military’s trajectory—and they bought time against critics calling for quick drawdowns.

Unless he changes his mind again

(NEWSER) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates has always hated Washington, and he plans to get the heck out sometime next year, he revealed today in a lengthy interview with Fred Kaplan for Foreign Policy . “I think that it would be a mistake to wait until January 2012,” he reasons. “It might be hard to find a good person to take the job so late” in Barack Obama’s term, he reasons. Besides “this is not the kind of job you want to fill in the spring of an election year.” More»

Lawmakers had opposed Prez's bid to cut money

(NEWSER) - In a shift, the White House looks likely to win over Congress in its bid to cut $1.7 billion in funding for the F-22 fighter jet, Politico reports. Congress had looked set to support the measure last week, but the administration is pressing hard with Defense Secretary Robert Gates leading the charge. And Democrats don’t want to undercut Obama at a key moment on health care when polls suggest his support is waning. More»

(NEWSER) - Robert Gates has apologized for the Air Force One photo op debacle over New York last week, the Los Angeles Times reports. “We deeply regret the anxiety and alarm that resulted from this mission,” the defense secretary wrote in a letter posted on the website of John McCain, who has called the flyover an "Air Farce One photo op." Meanwhile, the incident has cost the head of the White House Military Office, who OK'd it, his job, the New York Times reports. More»

Defense sec cuts deep, readies dep't for this century's wars

(AP) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates today recommended halting production of the F-22 fighter jet and scrapping a new helicopter for the president as he outlined deep cuts to many of the military's biggest weapons programs. Gates said his $534 billion budget proposal represents a "fundamental overhaul" in defense acquisition and reflects a shift in priorities from fighting conventional wars to the newer threats US forces face from insurgents in places such as Afghanistan. More»