Defense Secretary Robert Gates is officially leaving his post on June 30, but he’s not going gently into that good night. Gates has recently been outspoken in opposing defense spending cuts and supporting U.S. military intervention in Libya. (more)
America is at risk of losing its global supremacy, says departing Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a Newsweek article released Sunday. (more)
In one of his final speeches as secretary of Defense, Robert Gates took NATO allies to the woodshed. Addressing the leaders of the alliance at a meeting in Brussels late last week, Gates criticized European spending priorities, which have led to penny-pinching on military spending as governments shift financial resources to domestic programs. If that did not change, he warned, NATO’s future was “dim, if not dismal.” (more)
BRUSSELS — America’s military alliance with Europe — the cornerstone of U.S. security policy for six decades — faces a “dim, if not dismal” future, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday in a blunt valedictory address. (more)
President Obama’s national security team is contemplating troop reductions in Afghanistan that would be steeper than those discussed even a few weeks ago, with some officials arguing that such a change is justified by the rising cost of the war and the death of Osama bin Laden, which they called new “strategic considerations.” (more)
President Obama is increasingly doubtful that there’s a compelling reason to release a photograph of Osama bin Laden’s corpse, ABC News has learned. (more)
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a major U.S. national security reshuffle, President Barack Obama is sending CIA Director Leon Panetta to the Pentagon to replace Robert Gates, a widely praised Bush holdover, and replacing Panetta at the spy agency with Gen. David Petraeus, the high-profile commander of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. (more)
BAGHDAD (AP) — Even with the burdens of combat in Afghanistan and unrest in the Arab world, the U.S. would keep American troops in Iraq beyond the agreed 2011 final withdrawal date if Iraq’s government asked for extra help, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday. (more)
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates tried to smooth the worst rift in years with Arab ally and oil producer Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, reassuring the Saudi king that the U.S. remains a steady friend despite support for pro-democracy revolutions in the Middle East. (more)
Is the White House playing favorites again with media outlets? (more)
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a sign of U.S. confidence that the weeklong assault on Libya has tamed Moammar Gadhafi’s air defenses, the Pentagon has reduced the amount of naval firepower arrayed against him, officials said Sunday. (more)
The freshmen class roared into Congress vowing to get federal spending under control. And even though many of them recognize and revere the constitutional requirement to “provide for the common defense,” they refused to take the defense budget “off the table.” Good for them. (more)
Deep divisions between allied forces currently bombing Libya worsened today as the German military announced it was pulling forces out of NATO over continued disagreement on who will lead the campaign. (more)
MANAMA, Bahrain — As security forces and pro-government vigilantes beat back protesters here, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived Friday on an unannounced visit to offer American support to the royal family and prod the king and the crown prince toward talks with protesters demanding more democracy. (more)
For the Pentagon, Senate appropriators’ 2011 defense spending measure is a mixed bag. (more)
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in what he said is his final address to the cadets at the U.S. Military Academy, warned Friday against the United States getting involved in another major land battle. (more)
Just over half of the new Republican freshmen joined with 64 of their Republican colleagues and 123 Democrats to kill a dual engine for the F-35 fighter jet opposed by President Obama and the Pentagon as a waste of taxpayer dollars. (more)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon can live with a smaller budget this year than the Obama administration originally requested, but the total — not counting war costs — cannot be less than $540 billion, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday. (more)
Last month, Robert Gates spoke — granted, without revealing much — about his plans to step down as secretary of defense later this year: “I’m going to be around for a number of months. And I will be around through all the [budget] hearings, through the debate, and so on,” he told reporters during a trip to Ottawa, Canada. (more)
Ohio Democrat Rep. Dennis Kucinich sent a letter Friday requesting a meeting with Bradley Manning, the imprisoned Army private who allegedly stole classified government documents that were eventually published by the website Wikileaks. (more)
