US News
Reports: Obama to keep Gates at Pentagon for one year (Roundup)
Nov 25, 2008, 21:48 GMT
Washington - US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has agreed to stay in the job for at least one year of president-elect Barack Obama's administration, ABC News and Politico reported Tuesday, citing unnamed officials.
With Gates at the helm, Obama keeps in place a key architect of the troop buildup in Iraq that contributed to the sharp decrease in violence during the past 15 months. But Gates will be given new orders: Obama has pledged to have all US combat forces out of Iraq within 16 months of taking office January 20.
Asking Gates to stay on also helps Obama fulfill a pledge to have a bipartisan cabinet.
'It is a done deal,' a source close to the process told ABC News. Politco confirmed the report, citing Democratic and Republican officials. Gates is a registered independent but has served in numerous Republican administrations. He replaced Donald Rumsfeld as Pentagon chief in December 2006.
Obama has spent this week announcing his economic team, and is next week expected to present his national security and foreign policy appointments.
Obama will reportedly announce that former rival Hillary Clinton has agreed to give up her Senate seat to become secretary of state, and that retired Marine General James Jones, formerly commandant of the Marines and commander of US and NATO forces in Europe, will become national security adviser, Politico reported.
Democratic sources told Politco they expect James B Steinberg, who served on Bill Clinton's National Security Council, to be deputy secretary of state.
Politico also reported that Obama's senior foreign policy advisor during the campaign, Susan Rice, will be named US ambassador to the United Nations, and retired Navy admiral Dennis C Blair, the former chief of the US Pacific Command with stints in the CIA and on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will be named the director of national intelligence.
The office coordinates the activities of the various US intelligences agencies, including the CIA and super secretive National Security Agency.
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Older Talkback
page: 1
Or he could not find anyone he could trust, or was qualified.
gave a few more pardons and sprung a couple of people from jail today. I hope he will pardon me for being sooooo hap hap happy he's just about gone and out of here for good. What a miserable hopeless helpless nothing he's been for the USA. Good riddance George; I truly hope justice catches up with you.
Yes, professor, he was so bad, Obama has to employ his old war horses to make do. No matter what, Obama gets Iraq all tied up in a bow and on a silver platter. Ol GW has succeeded in freeing 50 million people, and setting up a democracy right in the middle of the middle east. It is now Obamas to piss away.
No, professor, god is going to punish you by answering your prayers. This neophyte boy king, virgin child and golden calf is going to check the polls on every decision, and when it comes time for a backbone, he's going to run to a Clintonite, or even a Clinton (after all, look at his picks) and borrow one.
George's stupidity and ignorance is contagious. You caught it.
His presence here on earth has been like the plague and he will leave with a whimper.
Ok spfool, you suggest that what The United States did in Iraq has brought them better democracy than in Pakistan. Pakistan was run by a military dictator until last year. Since 9/11 the US gave the military dictator @ 10 Billion US Dollars, essentially to protect al qaeda, taliban, and osama bin laden, etc. Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and long range missle delivery systems; Iraq does not, and did not when it was attacked. Pakistan gave nuclear weapons technology to North Korea; Iraq did not. Pakistan porovided, and still provides safe haven to Taliban and al qaeda; Iraq does not, and never did. After 9/11 aq qaeda fled back to their bases in Pakistan, not Iraq. Pakistan has allowed a huge narco-terrorist enclave within their borders; Iraq never did that.
So, since you claim 'unmitigated success' in Iraq, in your infantile, neocon, republicant apologist mind, tell us all why the United States, led by the Bush admin, should not have followed osama bin laden and al qaeda into Pakistan right after 9/11, instead of bringing on 'mission not accomlished'?
Iraq has, always, zero to do with Afghanistan. Obam wants to be the one to now hunt Bin Laden....knock yourself out babe...but please tell us what it is supposed to do for us...???
Iraq? The 2008 Nobel Peace Prize winner said it all:
'...finding WMD's was never necessary as we already know Saddam could manufacture them at will and we also know he was willing to use them on his enemies as he had used them on his own population...' - Martti Ahtisaari, 2008 Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Tell us, professor, what do YOU think he was trying to say?
Granted, they've given this useless award to idiots like Gore and terrorists like Arafat, but try reading between the lines...
Mission accomplished perhaps?
Bush....if he had the onions to deal with Saddam, what do you think he'd do on Iran???
Now you get the pleasure of watching Obama try and beguile Iran out of their nuclear weapons program like some kind of Liquor salesman. How do you think that's gonna work out...professor? Get back to us on that one, we're dying to know.
Mission accomplished perhaps?
The time for a president who would have actually done somthing has passed.
Now, run back to the dorm and study, much harder. Make sure to cover the term 'duck and cover'
the right is spewing forth fast and furious as we all knew they would. We need to thank our lucky stars we aren't dealing with McCain/Palin right now!!
Let's see....muddled dem lib message...new appointees failing to stem lack of confidence in markets....what the f--k are thanking our lucky stars for...exactly?
Hello?
If McCain were President-Elect, he'd have unfettered cooperation with the standing president, a nice thing to have at this critical juncture. He'd be mouthing tax cuts, the one, undeniable incentive to get money into the private sector as fast as possible,as demonstrated by Reagan's economic juggernaut in 1982 and Bush's in 2001, that created record growth, record employment and record tax income. Then, he'd be incentifying the markets to get THEIR capital working, via tax moratoriums.
Unfortunately, the Messiah-boy King you just handed the keys to is sending mixed messages and the markets are voting with their feet...and 'sell' orders. He mouths tax increases, poison to growth, then mouths 'middleclass' cuts, and 'stimulus' as if he ever saw a stimulus in his life. After that, he has dem libs prattling on about 'infrastructure finding' as a stimulant, or some crap about energy, etc.,scaring the market sot death with fears of inflation.
Thankful? You must be joking.
No, I'd settle for the Governor of Alaska any day. After all, she simply has more experience. Thsi is why Obama needs old Clintonites to fill his spots.
time to step out of the dream world. Obama has more intelligence than a million Palins, and a few McCains tossed in for good measure.
After all, his extensive resume' proves it. He got an equal opportunity jack-a-thon to Harvard. He jacked off at a law firm for a few years and then became a 'community organizer' although no one can seem to find anything he actually organized.
All McCain ever did was struggle under the hardest undegrad curiculum in the United States. Then, he learned to fly in military aviation, a real bonehead profession, correct? Anyone can do that! After that, a handful of Navy tours and five years as a POW, he spent the next 30 years in the Senate, working on every stinker that came before him.
But Obama is 'smart'
I feel better already.
and McCain live in a perfect world and everybody else is out of step.
SP is determined to live in the past, but that's typical of old guys. He hasn't gotten his mind wrapped around the fact that McCain lost and for good reason. Many reasons to be exact. Keeping Gates was a smart move by a smart man.
...none of that makes me wrong. The facts about Obama stand, no matter what time you live in. Besides, what criteria do you use to brand this messiah as 'smart'? Is this something his generation picks out of a craker jack box, a generation that remakes everything but creates little new of it's own? Was it the liberal media who told you this, or did you just decide it on your own?
Obama has never produced a thing in his life. He has less experience in executive matters than Palin, and that is really saying something. He has never really authored any meaningful legislation, never served in the military, never worked on Wall Street, or any other private sector executive job, or any executive position of any kind. He is billed as a community organizer, but has no record of ever organizing anything concrete except a deal on his home from Tony 'the knife' Rezko.
We have seen this before. John F. Kennedy was a construct i.e. daddy got him his boat commission, paid Harvard to let him in, and got Sam Giancana to stuff ther ballot boxes (Now they use ACORN). Richard Nixon, on the other hand was a self made man, rose from poverty to the highest office in the land. The prettier guy won in 1960. That, Mark, does not make him a lick smarter.
So, what makes Obama so smart? I'm dying to hear. I would agree he made a good move leaving Gates there, as he cannot seem to find anyone on the left to fill it right away and, after all, Bush picked him too. Perhaps he IS smart, or he just followed another truely smart person's decision? Be sure to get back to us Mark. I cannot wait.
Your constant psycho babble regarding Palin's experience, etc., is crap. And 'getting back' to you isn't my main goal in life - and you need to get one!
page: 1
SP4: a Tip of the hatNov 25th, 2008 - 22:07:54
Here it is: Gates, the architect of the Iraq buildup, asked to stay.
Why?
Dems lambasted Bush for years, but now admit, by deed, that it was an unmitigated success. Iraq now has less violence and a more democratic government than Pakistan.
Now, they need to keep this guy in place, in order to achieve their goals, as if being out in 16 months was one of them, or just to blame him if they need to.
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