As predicted, Robert Gates will be staying on as Defense Secretary in the new Obama administration.
Count me as psyched. I've been of fan of Gates', for quite some time. I wrote this, for example, in June:
Obama's defense team certainly has serious beefs with Bush's military and diplomatic decisions -- to launch the war, to take resources from Afghanistan, to refuse serious talks with Iran. But, from my limited discussions with [Obama advisor Richard] Danzig and others, the thing that really pisses them off was the management of the Pentagon during the Bush years. The spiraling budgets, the lack of accountability, the slipped deadlines, the circumventing of the chain of command, the politicization of policy -- to former Defense Department stewards like Danzig, those were the real horror shows.
But since Gates has been brought in, things have started to turn. Budgets have begun to return to reality. People lose their jobs when they can't do them right. Experts in their fields are being heard. Sound policy is often trumping adherence to political orthodoxy. And the Pentagon is slowly, slowly starting to focus on today's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. That's the attraction of Gates.
Still is.
[Photo: DoD]
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