This is the first time I have heard of Gates being criticized as the problem. Any data to back that up or are you just another military pork purveyor trying to trash a man who has spent his life in honorable service to the country?
I’m a recently retired military officer who refuses to look for work involving any government agency or contractor. I’m heading back to school to train for an entirely different life. 25 years was enough - so stuff your insults up your ass!
I saw a copy of the briefing and understand the trade-offs involved in the decisions that needed to be made. There was no good answer possible, only a variety of bad. Since the briefing was classified, I can/will not document or repeat it. However, if you know anything about managing and fielding a weapon system, you can guess the trade-offs pretty easily.
Gates made a reasonable decision, but he had no call to criticize the USAF for doing as directed. He was venting his frustration, but scoring political points while doing it. He was also justifiably pissed at the senior USAF staff - a quick poll in my office of retired and current O-4/5/6s suggested total agreement with firing 50-100 Generals and getting new blood into a clueless bureaucracy.
Still, he is the one who chose what course to follow. The truth is the USAF is grossly under-capitalized for it to do what the country expects - and it isn’t going to get any more with the wars going on.