Free Republic

WASHINGTON – Tell us, Robert Gates, what's the difference between working under Barack Obama and working under George W. Bush? "That sounds like the subject of a good book," Gates said with a smile. "It's really hard to say," he continued during an interview aired Sunday on "Meet the Press" on NBC.

Gates jokes about North Korean missile test /snip "Since the first time that they launched the missile it flew for a few minutes before crashing, the range of the Taepodong-2 remains to be seen," Gates told reporters during a Pentagon news conference. "So far, it's very short." /snip

The Bush administration could begin drawing troops out of Iraq by the end of the year, Robert Gates, the defence secretary, said on Sunday. Mr Gates insisted, however, that the so-called surge in US deployment this year had been effective. Mr Gates said on NBC’s Meet the Press there was a possibility that the US could begin to withdraw forces by the end of this year. But he also made clear that any decision would depend on the outcome of a progress report by General David Petraeus, the senior military commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador, which...