Obama taps Gates to stay as defense secretary - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Obama taps Gates to stay as defense secretary

The rumors became fact Monday morning as President-elect Barack Obama announced that Robert Gates has agreed to stay on as secretary of defense and preside over the end of the war in Iraq, the growth of U.S. ground forces and the troop buildup in Afghanistan.

Obama also named Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones as his nominees for secretary of state and national security adviser, respectively, and also named three other members of his “national security team.”

Obama said he would be giving Gates and the military a “new mission as soon as I take office: responsibly ending the war in Iraq through a successful transition to Iraqi control.”

“We will ensure that we have the strategy and resources to succeed against al-Qaida and the Taliban,” Obama said. “As Bob said not too long ago, Afghanistan is where the war on terror began, and it is where it must end. And going forward, we will continue to make the investments necessary to strengthen our military and increase our ground forces to defeat the threats of the 21st century.”

Gates stopped in Chicago en route to Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to be on hand for the formal announcement of Obama’s national security team. Joining Gates on the stage were Clinton and Jones and nominees Eric Holder, for attorney general; Janet Napolitano, for secretary of homeland security; and Susan Rice, for U.N. ambassador.

Obama said his choices “share my pragmatism about the use of power, and my sense of purpose about America’s role as a leader in the world.”

Gates, confirmed in December 2006 following the often-contentious six-year reign of Donald Rumsfeld, “restored accountability,” Obama said. “He won the confidence of military commanders, and the trust of our brave men and women in uniform, as well as their families. He earned the respect of members of Congress on both sides of the aisle for his pragmatism and competence. He knows that we need a sustainable national security strategy, and that includes a bipartisan consensus at home.”

Gates said he was “deeply honored” to be asked to continue in the job, saying it was with a “profound sense of personal responsibility to and for our men and women in uniform, and their families, I must do my duty, as they do theirs. How could I do otherwise?”

He called his past nearly two years in the job “the most gratifying experience of my life.”

All the people named would require Senate confirmation except for Gates and Jones, according to a Senate Armed Services Committee spokesman.

In accepting the job, Gates reversed a long-stated intention to leave government service when the new administration takes office. Although he has literally counted down the days until Jan. 20, he had in recent months qualified his responses to the question of whether he might change his mind and stay, telling Military Times on Oct. 23, “I’d better just say that I plan to go home to Washington state in January.”

In choosing Gates, Obama made clear he approves of the defense secretary’s even-handed management style and emphasis on accountability, demonstrated most prominently in his June firing of the Air Force secretary and chief of staff over concern that the service’s focus on the handling of nuclear weapons had “drifted.”

The choice also lends some credence to Obama’s promise of a cabinet with a diversity of views. Although Gates is not a registered Republican and has served under presidents from both parties during his 42 years of government service, he has worked under both George W. Bush as well as Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, whom he served as director of central intelligence.

Gates also supported the Iraq invasion, which Obama vehemently opposed. But Gates later harshly criticized the initial conduct of that war. He is also an advocate of greater use of the broad swath of government capabilities, not just military power, to achieve national security objectives.

Obama echoed that thinking Monday when he said: “To succeed, we must pursue a new strategy that skillfully uses, balances and integrates all elements of American power — our military, and diplomacy; our intelligence, and law enforcement; our economy, and the power of our moral example. The team we’ve assembled here today is uniquely suited to do just that.”

Obama’s decisions on his national security team drew praise from House and Senate leaders.

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Obama’s choices show “good judgment.”

Skelton, just back from spending Thanksgiving with U.S. troops in Afghanistan, said keeping Gates as defense secretary is a sign of strong continuity.

Gates “is trustworthy,” Skelton said. “The first time he testified before my committee, he said he was not here to mislead anyone. He hasn’t.”

Clinton, Obama’s choice to be secretary of state, is someone who can “hit the ground running” because she understands national security issues and has personal contact with many foreign heads of state, Skelton said.

Jones, Obama’s choice to be national security adviser, is a personal friend of Skelton’s. “He is not just a Marine, he is a first-class diplomat who gives good advice ... he has given me good advice,” Skelton said.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, said keeping Gates as defense secretary “is an excellent and unique choice.”

Keeping a Republican holdover in the top Pentagon post “reflects President-elect Obama’s perspective that quality is a nonpartisan characteristic,” Levin said.

Levin credited Gates with “restoring a measure of accountability in the Pentagon” that is “a critical component of the change that President-elect Obama was chosen to bring about.”

Keeping Gates also underscores the defense secretary’s “recognition of the limits of military power and that America’s greatest source of power is the values for which it is willing to fight,” Levin said.

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Staff writer Rick Maze contributed to this story.