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Defense Secretary Robert Gates is unlikely to certify repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” before leaving office next week, senior defense and military officials said. Two weeks ago, Gates said that he would finalize the repeal of the 18-year-old ban on openly gay troops if the service chiefs give him their OK before he retires on June 30. And in a message to commanders earlier this month, Army leaders said assessments on the progress and impact of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal training — underway since February — are due this Friday, leaving open a slim possibility that certification...

With little fanfare or controversy, the Senate on Tuesday unanimously confirmed Leon Panetta as the next Defense secretary as a debate rages in Washington over the cost and scope of military operations abroad. Panetta, President Barack Obama’s CIA director, succeeds Robert Gates, who has led the Pentagon since late 2006 and is retiring at the end of the month. Panetta’s confirmation comes just a day before Obama’s major address on the Afghanistan war in which he is expected to announce he’ll withdraw all 33,000 “surge” troops from the region by the end of 2012. In addition to the troop drawdown,...

Hint: It’s not what you think. In his exit interview with Chris Wallace, soon to be former Defense Secretary Bob Gates told Wallace what he worries about the most. And, no it’s not Islamic terrorism. It’s us! Gates bemoaned the loss of bipartisanship in DC as our biggest problem. When asked by Wallace what he worries about as he looks to the future, the Secretary didn’t mention the two new wars that Obama has dragged America into. He didn’t mention the rise of home grown jihadism. Or the war in Afghanistan. Nope, it’s not Pakistani nukes either. Nor is it...

SNIPPET: "There are some good reasons for allowing at least a few jihadi forums to operate." SNIPPET: "However, there are limits to our ability to exploit all the intelligence opportunities a forum may present. To put it another way, jihadi forums contribute to future terrorism in ways that are unpredictable and/or beyond our ability to control. This would be the view held by those other government agencies who prefer to seek out and destroy forums and to take down forum activists. For my part, I can live with keeping online those forums we have sufficient access to monitor and resources...

WASHINGTON—The coming round of Pentagon budget cuts will force lawmakers to consider reducing military pay and benefits, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday, raising an issue that could prove politically sensitive in a time of war In what was billed as Mr. Gates's last major policy speech, the outgoing Pentagon chief said the government would have to "re-examine military compensation," consider altering the retirement system to bring down costs, and address spiraling health-care costs. Trimming Pentagon spending, Mr. Gates said, "will entail going places that have been avoided by politicians in the past."

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates bluntly criticized NATO nations on Friday for what he said were shortages in military spending and political will, warning of “a dim if not dismal future” for an alliance at risk of becoming irrelevant in a dangerous and uncertain world. Mr. Gates slammed NATO nations for failing to meet their commitments in Afghanistan — or for imposing sweeping restrictions on those forces they do send — which he said hobbled the mission. And despite NATO’s decision to take command of the air war in Libya, the alliance is running out of bombs after just 11...

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says America's military alliance with Europe, which has been the cornerstone of U.S. security policy for six decades, faces a "dim, if not dismal" future. In a blunt valedictory address Friday in Brussels, Gates questioned NATO's viability, saying its members' penny-pinching and lack of political will could hasten the end of U.S. support. NATO was formed in 1949 as a U.S.-led bulwark against Soviet aggression, but in the post-Cold War era it has struggled to find a purpose.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates names five alliance members that he says should do more to share the burden of NATO's air campaign against Moammar Kadafi. Only seven nations are carrying out airstrikes. Reporting from Brussels— Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Wednesday urged more NATO allies to join the air campaign against Libya, arguing that it was putting a strain on the seven members of the 28-nation alliance that are carrying the burden in a conflict that shows few signs of ending soon, U.S. officials said. In a sign of the growing strain that the 3-month-old operation is putting...

The U.S. war in Iraq has just been given an unexpected seal of approval. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in what he billed as his “last major policy speech in Washington,” has owned up to the gains in Iraq, to the surprise that Iraq has emerged as “the most advanced Arab democracy in the region.” It was messy, this Iraqi democratic experience, but Iraqis “weren’t in the streets shooting each other, the government wasn’t in the streets shooting its people,” Gates observed. The Americans and the Iraqis had not labored in vain; the upheaval of the Arab Spring has only underlined...

Frank Gaffney at Breitbar's Big Peace, has been following Robert Gates' last days as Obama's Sec'y of Defense. The round of speeches by Gates in the past days has many - including Gaffney - scratching their heads, as he solemnly warns against the "“hollowing out” of the military" in what can only be construed as johnnie come lately criticism for Obama's plan to cut the defense budget by an additional $400 billion by 2023.This would be the same Sec'y of Defense who had his spokesman say he backed the plan just a month ago, but that the specifics of the...

Almost 100 seniors at Concord Academy received their diplomas on Friday after a poignant address by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. of Harvard University. Headmaster Richard Hardy said the diploma “connects you to the past and the future” to sustained applause from the audience of faculty and parents seated under a tent on the verdant campus. “This is your day,” alumna Amy McCarthy of the Board of Trustees told the students. “I am living proof that there is nothing final about today.”

The coming round of Pentagon budget cuts will force lawmakers to consider reducing military pay and benefits, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday, raising an issue that could prove politically sensitive in a time of war, In what was billed as Mr. Gates's last major policy speech, the outgoing Pentagon chief said the government would have to "re-examine military compensation," consider altering the retirement system to bring down costs, and address spiraling health-care costs. Trimming Pentagon spending, Mr. Gates said, "will entail going places that have been avoided by politicians in the past." Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says a...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (May 19, 2011) — Finding $400 billion in additional defense spending reductions over the next 12 years will require careful thought that considers the risks the reductions create, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said here today. In a question-and-answer session with students at the U.S. Army Engineer School here, Gates warned against what he called the “managerial cowardice” of across-the-board cuts, advocating instead an approach that retains excellence in the missions the military keeps while cutting missions and programs that have value but would pose an acceptable level of risk if eliminated ... Gates said “politically...

Speaking at a town hall with Marines at Camp Lejeune on Thursday morning, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Special Forces who participated in the successful mission to kill Osama bin Laden were worried about their safety, and that he was concerned that so many details of the operation had become known to the public. “Frankly, a week ago Sunday, in the Situation Room, we all agreed that we would not release any operational details from the effort to take out bin Laden,” Gates said. “That all fell apart on Monday -- the next day.” Gates’ response was prompted by...

CNN: Gates gave a speech today blasting the fact so many raid and Navy Seal details were released by the government. Gates said this in front of several thousand US Marines.

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (NewsCore) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that Obama administration officials had initially agreed no details of the US Navy SEALs' raid on Usama bin Laden's Pakistan hideout would be made public, but that those plans "all fell apart." "Frankly, a week ago Sunday, in the Situation Room, we all agreed that we would not release any operational details from the effort to take out bin Laden," Gates said at a town hall with Marines at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, according to FOX News Channel. "That all fell apart on Monday -- the next day."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated today that one of the main reasons why President Barack Obama has decided not to release death photos of terrorist Osama bin Laden is because he fears that the pictures will be photoshopped and used against the United States. Mr. Gates stated that the President believes that, should the photos be released, they will quickly be "misused" in order to drive anti-American sentiment in the Middle East and elsewhere. Gates stated: "One of the things that I think concerns Secretary [of State Hillary] Clinton and I is the risk not only of the pictures themselves...

Gutsy? Please. A White House insider offers a peek behind the scenes regarding the no-brainer decision to take out bin Laden: President Obama was, in this case, as in all others, working as an absentee president. … [T]here had been a push to invade the compound for several weeks if not months, primarily led by Leon Panetta, Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, David Petraeus, and Jim Clapper. The primary opposition to this plan originated from Valerie Jarrett, and it was her opposition that was enough to create uncertainty within President Obama. … Every time military and intelligence officials appeared to make...

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. There don't seem to be many skeptics of bin Laden's death in the Muslim world, with bin Laden's wife having survived the attack to identify bin Laden's death both to the Navy SEALs and Pakistani authorities. Meanwhile, sources say, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are advising the president about concerns at the Pentagon and State Department that releasing a photograph could prompt a backlash against the US for killing bin Laden where...

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says President Barack Obama has approved the use of armed Predator drone aircraft in Libya. Gates told a Pentagon news conference that the Predator is an example of the unique U.S. military capabilities that Obama is willing to contribute to a coalition military campaign in Libya, while other countries enforce a no-fly zone.