Robert Gates

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Pentagon Denies Helping Salahis Crash Dinner
 Pentagon Denies Helping 
 Salahis Crash Dinner 
DEFENSE'S DEFENSE
Nov 30, 2009 8:52 PM CST

Pentagon Denies Helping Salahis Crash Dinner

Gates assistant communicated with couple, but made no promises

(Newser) - The couple who crashed the Obama administration's first state dinner communicated with a senior Pentagon official about going to the event, but the official denies that she helped the couple get in. Michele Jones, a special assistant to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, said in a written statement tonight that she...

Top Obama Advisers Push 30K Troop Increase
 Top Obama Advisers 
 Push 30K Troop Increase 
Afghan rethink
Nov 11, 2009 7:45 AM CST

Top Obama Advisers Push 30K Troop Increase

President, war council, weigh Afghan troop options today

(Newser) - As President Obama heads into a meeting with his national security team today, one of the four options on the table for increasing troop levels in Afghanistan has emerged as a favorite of his top advisers. Hillary Clinton, Mike Mullen, and Robert Gates all favor a plan to send about...

Troop Injuries Hit New High in Afghanistan

Taliban roadside bombs highly effective against US

(Newser) - Injuries to US troops in Afghanistan have risen alarmingly in the last 3 months, as a Taliban offensive deploys deadlier roadside bombs aimed at American and other foreign forces. The rate of injury has surpassed that in Iraq during the heaviest fighting of the surge 2 years ago, the Washington...

Obama Looks for Local Allies in Afghanistan

Administration's decided it can't wipe out Taliban

(Newser) - President Obama has requested detailed, province-by-province analysis of Afghanistan’s local and tribal leaders, hoping to find more effective partners than the country’s weak and corrupt central government. The administration has concluded that no surge in troops will be able to eradicate the Taliban as a political force, but...

Pentagon Holds Secret Afghan War Games

Mullen leads exercise to assess effects of troop surge

(Newser) - The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, led a secret war game earlier this month to assess the Obama administration's options in Afghanistan, including a 44,000-troop surge. A team of military leaders used Gen. Stanley McChrystal's analysis to examine how Taliban insurgents and the Afghan...

Gates Warns Japan Not to Back Out of Troop Deal

Relationship with Asian ally increasingly strained

(Newser) - All is not well between the US and Japan. Yesterday Robert Gates warned the country of serious consequences if it backs out of a troop movement deal the two countries spent 10 years negotiating. Japan’s new ruling party wants to reopen those negotiations, as it moves to redefine its...

Pentagon Downplays 13K Surge in Afghan Support Troops

Extra thousands swell US numbers in Afghanistan

(Newser) - When does 21,000 equal 34,000? When the Pentagon is counting. The 21,000 additional troops President Obama approved for Afghanistan earlier this year have been accompanied by 13,000 extra support troops, bringing the total number in Afghanistan to nearly 68,000. Pentagon and White House officials have...

Vietnam Books Playing Key Role in Afghan War Debate
Vietnam Books Playing Key Role in Afghan War Debate
WHAT OBAMA IS READING
Oct 7, 2009 8:24 AM CDT

Vietnam Books Playing Key Role in Afghan War Debate

Competing works on Vietnam War top policymakers' reading lists

(Newser) - A pair of books on the Vietnam War—one on why America should never have gotten involved, and one on how it could have won—are providing the framework for the Washington debate over Afghanistan strategy, insiders say. Lessons in Disaster, which describes how the White House was pushed into...

Military Advice to Obama Should Be Private: Gates

Defense secretary joins criticism of McChrystal

(Newser) - Military commanders should give their advice on Afghanistan to President Obama, not to the public, Robert Gates said today. In an implicit reprimand to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who has commented openly on his low opinion of the administration’s Afghanistan policy, the defense secretary said such advice should be given...

Gates, Jones Split on Afghan Troop Timetable

DoD chief: decision in 'a few weeks'; general says 'no deadline'

(Newser) - The White House appears slightly out of sync on when exactly it expects to make a decision on troop levels in Afghanistan. "I don't have a deadline in my mind," national security adviser James Jones told Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, adding, "The most important thing...

Congress Wants McChrystal in Hot Seat

Members of both parties want testimony, but Pentagon is not forthcoming

(Newser) - With the White House beset by classified leaks and agonizing over a new Afghan strategy, lawmakers from both parties in both Houses of Congress are calling for a sitdown with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the Wall Street Journal reports. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has refused requests for testimony from McChrystal until...

Pragmatic Style Makes Gates White House Heavyweight

Defense secretary helps dismantle missile shield program he backed under Bush

(Newser) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates has bridged the gap between the Bush and Obama administrations and become a major player in reshaping national security policy in the process, officials tell the New York Times. His pragmatic style—as seen in his decision to ditch the missile defense system he signed off...

Obama's New Missile Plan Offers Better Defense: Gates

Strategy deploys more missiles 6 years earlier than under Bush plan

(Newser) - The Obama administration is upgrading missile defense plans in Europe, not abandoning them, writes Robert Gates, the author of the Bush-era plans recently scrapped, in a New York Times op-ed. The previous plan would not have installed the proposed 10 long-range interceptors in Central Europe until at least 2017, while...

Dropping Missile Shield Is Jab at Bush—Not US Allies

Obama & Co. see Russia, Iran threats differently

(Newser) - President Obama’s decision to shelve the missile shield for Eastern Europe is appeasement only to those obsessed with “legacy threats” like Russia, Marc Ambinder writes for the Atlantic. Obama believes the threat from Iran was overstated by President Bush, and that the shield technology wasn’t a sure...

Gates Slams AP's Decision to Run Dying Marine's Photo

Agency says it sought to show 'reality of war'

(Newser) - Robert Gates is blasting the Associated Press for transmitting a photo of a dying 21-year-old Marine against his family’s wishes, Politico reports. The defense secretary calls the decision “appalling.” In a letter to Thomas Curley, the AP’s president, Gates asked him to reconsider, citing “common...

Obama's Top Advisers Split on Afghan Troop Levels

(Newser) - President Obama's advisers are divided over the Pentagon's expected request for more troops to be deployed to Afghanistan, reports the New York Times. Joe Biden is leading the just-say-no camp, arguing that the mission in Pakistan is more important. The opposition includes envoy Richard Holbrooke, who says US troops are...

In F-22's Wake, USAF Embraces Cheaper Aircraft

(Newser) - The scrapping of the F-22 has sent the US Air Force into an abrupt about-face, Time reports. Newly installed officials are asking for 100 cheap, multirole planes that can attack ground positions and also be used to train other countries' pilots in their use. The aircraft must have a range...

House Bill Loaded With $6.5B the Pentagon Doesn't Want
House Bill Loaded With $6.5B the Pentagon Doesn't Want
earmarks showdown
Jul 30, 2009 8:30 AM CDT

House Bill Loaded With $6.5B the Pentagon Doesn't Want

(Newser) - They gave up on the F22, but Congress is still trying to give the Pentagon $6.9 billion in planes, helicopters and ships the Defense secretary doesn’t want, the Washington Post reports. House Democrats have loaded the defense spending bill with earmarks for programs Barack Obama and Robert Gates...

Gates: Troops May Leave Iraq Early

(Newser) - The United States is considering speeding up its withdrawal from Iraq because of the sustained drop in violence there, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said today, following discussions with his top commanders in the war. "I think there's at least some chance of a modest acceleration," this year, Gates...

Kurd-Arab Conflict Now Biggest Threat to Iraq

(Newser) - Tension between Arabs and Kurds, rather than the usual friction between Sunnis and Shia, has become the greatest threat to Iraqi security, says the top US general in the country. The oil-rich Kurdish region has become "the No. 1 driver of instability," Ray Odierno told reporters yesterday, and...

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