Free Republic

From:john.podesta@gmail.com To: r_m_gates@att.net Date: 2008-11-16 18:51 Subject: Re: Contact Information Thx. ------Original Message------ From: Bob Gates To: John.Podesta@gmail.com Sent: Nov 16, 2008 3:42 PM Subject: Contact Information John, If you or anyone needs to contact me or talk with me privately during business hours, you can reach me through my personal e-mail at r_m_gates@att.net (there is an underscore -- r_m_ -- after the r and m in place of a period. I offer that because you indicated you had tried unsuccessfully to reach me by e-mail: the underscores in the address may not have come through in my initial e-mail...

Chuck Hagel Breaks His Silence A glimpse inside the Obama inner circle's culture of deceit and delusion. December 22, 2015 Ari Lieberman I've never been a big fan of former Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, but one cannot help but feel some sympathy for a man who had to endure two years of fecklessness, incompetence and back-stabbing in the Obama White House. It would have been enough to drive any sane person stark, raving mad. Hagel announced his resignation in November 2014 (he stayed on a bit longer until replaced by Ashton Carter), but the brutal reality is that...

Jet-lagged from a long overseas trip, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had just sat down with his wife for a quiet dinner at an upscale Italian restaurant in northern Virginia when his phone rang. It was the White House on the line. President Barack Obama wanted to speak with him. It was Aug. 30, 2013, and the U.S. military was poised for war. Obama had publicly warned Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad that his regime would face consequences if it crossed a “red line” by employing chemical weapons against its own people. Assad did it anyway, and Hagel had spent the day...

In the face of Israeli outrage over the Iran nuclear accord, the Pentagon is moving quickly to reinforce arguably the strongest part of the U.S.-Israeli relationship: military cooperation. But officials say Washington has no plans to offer new weaponry as compensation for the Iran deal. Defense Secretary Ash Carter left for Tel Aviv on Sunday to push ahead with talks on ways the U.S. can further improve Israel's security — not just with Iranian threats in mind, but an array of other challenges, including cyberdefense and maritime security. Israel also has expressed concern that U.S. sales of advanced weaponry to...

Navy Rear Admiral John Kirby, the press secretary of the Pentagon and they guy you always see explaining American military action on television, announced his sudden resignation today, one day after the new Secretary of Defense was sworn into office.

Tuesday, at Defense Sec. Ash Carter‘s swearing-in ceremony, Biden got all touchy feely with Carter’s wife, Stephanie. From the pictures, it looks like he’s whispering sweet nothings into her right ear. He’s also getting a good whiff of her shampoo. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt: Perhaps he was trying to be comforting after her spill on the ice at the Pentagon this morning while she was accompanying her husband on his first day on the job.

5 Senators who voted against confirmation of Ashton Carter as new Defense Secretary: Sen. Roy Blunt, R- Mo.; Sen. John Boozman, R- Ark.; Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho; Sen. Mark Kirk, R- Ill.; Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho

President Obama will announce the resignation of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Monday in the first high-profile personnel move since Democrats suffered significant losses in this month's midterm elections. "In October, Secretary Hagel began speaking with the President about departing the administration given the natural post-midterms transition time," a senior administration official said. Obama will make the announcement with Hagel at 11:00 a.m. According to the White House, a successor will be named "in short order," but Hagel will remain in the post until that person is confirmed by the Senate. A senior administration official praised Hagel as "a steady...

The New York Times reports that President Barack Obama is about to dismiss Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. The reason given? That the White House recognized that "the threat from the Islamic State would require a different kind of skills than those that Mr. Hagel was brought on to employ." In other words: Hagel was brought on to downgrade the military radically, but now the military turns out to be necessary, after all. Yet that cannot be the only reason, absent any sign that Obama is committing to a sudden, steep increase in the defense budget, and reversing the non-sequester...

Secretary Chuck Hagel is resigning, The New York Times reported on Monday. A senior administration official subsequently confirmed to Business Insider that Hagel would resign Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/report-defense-secretary-chuck-hagel-is-resigning-2014-11#ixzz3JzprGedA

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is stepping down under pressure, the first cabinet-level casualty of the collapse of President Obama’s Democratic majority in the Senate and the struggles of his national security team amid an onslaught of global crises. The president, who is expected to announce Mr. Hagel’s resignation in a Rose Garden appearance on Monday, made the decision to ask his defense secretary — the sole Republican on his national security team — to step down last Friday after a series of meetings over the past two weeks, senior administration officials said.

Having already lifted the “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on gays in the military, the Pentagon “likely will” allow transgendered Americans to serve openly in the military where 15,500 now secretly serve, according to a new report issued by top former generals. Three of the top brass, endorsing the deployment of transgendered troops, also said their effort has the support of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and President Obama. In a statement accompanying the 29-page report issued Tuesday, they said, “Our conclusion is that allowing transgender personnel to serve openly is administratively feasible and will not be burdensome or complicated. Three...

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned Thursday that the Islamic State is more than a traditional "terrorist group" and better armed, trained and funded than any recent threat. "They marry ideology and a sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess. They are tremendously well funded. This is beyond anything we have seen," Hagel told reporters.

NBC News reports U.S. Army Major General Harold Greene was buried today at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors, including a caisson, two escort platoons, casket team, firing party, colors team, and a caparisoned horse. The U.S. Army band, “Pershing’s Own,” played softly as the funeral procession made its way down the long hill past the rows of simple white gravestones to bring General Greene to his final resting place. The graveside service began with a few words, followed by a 13-gun salute. The major general’s widow, Dr. Susan Myers, was seated in the front row. To her right...

WASHINGTON, July 23, 2014 – Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has authorized more temporary housing to shelter an additional 5,000 unaccompanied alien children anticipated to arrive in the United States from Central America in the coming months.

A new TV ad by Gary Bauer's PAC, Campaign for Working Families, exposes Mississippi Senate candidate Thad Cochran for his support of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of State. Hagel has been a rubber stamp for Obama's disastrous foreign policy agenda.

At a closed-door gathering of Gulf states in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in May, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and his Arab counterparts all signaled agreement on one thing for the first time: Islamist forces seizing territory in Syria and Iraq had become a regionwide menace that can't be ignored. What they didn't agree on was what to do about it, U.S. officials said.The fall this week of the Iraqi cities Mosul and Tikrit to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham rebel group shows how the insurgent threat is outpacing the response and posing a challenge to President Barack Obama's approach...

WASHINGTON –Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel apparently isn’t going to let the Obama administration throw him under the bus in the Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl scandal. In fact, you could say just the opposite. In his opening statement this morning at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee, Hagel made a point of saying it was President Obama “who made the final decision” to swap Bergdahl for five top Taliban leaders, with the full support of his national security team.

Top members of Congress were briefed more than two years ago about the possibility of exchanging an American soldier held captive by the Taliban for five terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, senior Democrats and Republicans said Tuesday. In a statement, House Speaker John Boehner said lawmakers raised serious concerns that were never satisfactorily answered about the potential swap involving Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and received assurances from the Obama administration that if a deal were more likely, Congress would be contacted. Lawmakers weren’t informed until word came this past Saturday of the exchange. …

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said the U.S. did not negotiate with terrorists in the process of exchanging the transfer of five terrorism suspects for the release of the only American prisoner of war in Afghanistan. “We didn’t negotiate with terrorists,” Mr. Hagel said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And I said and explained before, Sergeant Bergdahl is a prisoner of war. That’s a normal process in getting your prisoners back.” Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was handed over to U.S. special forces by the Taliban Saturday, with the government of Qatar serving as a go-between. Qatar is taking custody of five...