Obama Reportedly Mulls Keeping Gates as Defense Chief

DAN SAGALYN, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer: While all the Washington buzz is over Sen. Hillary Clinton's probable appointment as secretary of state, a more intense debate is brewing over who should be the new chief at the Pentagon. Doubts are surfacing in unusual quarters about keeping Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in the Cabinet. The idea of retaining Gates was floated publicly in October by Obama defense adviser Richard Danzig. Here's what he told a group of defense reporters:

RICHARD DANZIG, Obama defense adviser: I think Secretary Gates has been a good secretary of defense. I think he'd be an even better one in the Obama administration. Many of the kinds of efforts he's made are in tune with what we're trying to do.

DAN SAGALYN: Obama campaigned on a promise of ending partisan squabbling in Washington. Keeping Secretary of Defense Gates has been seen by some as a way of keeping that commitment. Gates is highly regarded by Democrats and Republicans alike and is seen having brought accountability to the Pentagon. Most of the commentary in the media about retaining him has been glowing. Here's what Mark Shields and David Brooks had to say on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer:

JIM LEHRER: Quickly, what about the idea of keeping Bob Gates on as secretary of defense? Is that a good idea?

MARK SHIELDS, syndicated columnist: I think it's a good idea.

JIM LEHRER: What about you?

DAVID BROOKS, New York Times columnist: That's an excellent idea, if he'll do it.

DAN SAGALYN: There's more division, however among Obama supporters. Retired Brig. Gen. David McGinnis campaigned for Obama. He had a 29-year career in the Army and National Guard and served as director of strategic plans and analysis for reserve affairs at the Pentagon.

BRIG. GEN. DAVID MCGINNIS (Ret.): There has been a long-standing myth in America that Democrats are weak on defense. That was reinforced by President Clinton's appointment of Senator Cohen as secretary of defense. And I believe that it was an issue of this campaign. And to leave Gates in that position and say I don't have a Democrat that's capable or I don't have a Democratic team that's capable of coming in and taking over just again just further reinforces that myth.

DAN SAGALYN: Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb, another Obama backer, agrees. Korb, now with the Center for American Progress, says keeping Gates would thwart Obama's ability to gain control of the Pentagon. The defense secretary, he says, would want to keep many senior officials appointed by the Bush administration. And, Korb believes, Gates would have a hard time getting things done.

LAWRENCE KORB, Center for American Progress: I think if you look at it objectively that you have to ask yourself how long would you keep him. Some people said let's keep him for a year. Well, if you do that he becomes a lame duck. Second is you can't expect him to stay and not have his own team. Well, what does that mean in terms of the people he has working for him, many of whom have different positions than Obama does. And so I think if you look at it from that perspective, it doesn't make a great deal of sense.

DAN SAGALYN: Korb believes that Gates would not be able to usher in the kind of change Obama promised during the campaign.

LAWRENCE KORB: The question is if you're going to make any very, very significant changes in Pentagon spending, Pentagon policy, you've got to do it in your first year. And if you have the same secretary, it's going to be very hard for him to admit that for the last two years he hasn't been doing what he should have been doing.

DAN SAGALYN: But not all Barack Obama supporters see this issue as starkly. Jeffrey Smith, who was legal counsel at the CIA during the Clinton administration, says the challenge of deciding what to do about the staff is real. But he thinks there is merit to keeping Gates for a little while, given the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

JEFFREY SMITH, former CIA legal counsel: We are in the middle of two wars. There are a lot of decisions that have been made over the last few months that are in the process of being implemented, and Gates has concentrated very hard on all of those issues, ranging from the larger strategic issues about the future of U.S. forces in Iraq, the shifting of emphasis to Afghanistan, General Petraeus' new responsibilities. Continuity is always important in operations. And the fact that Gates has garnered the trust of the senior leadership in the military, which frankly, under Rumsfeld deteriorated so badly, that's the argument in favor of continuity.

DAN SAGALYN: Lawrence Korb disagrees.

LAWRENCE KORB: I think people worried about continuity are worried about the wrong thing because that's why the law appoints military leaders, the chiefs of staff, chairman of the joint chiefs, combat and command for fixed tours so that they can stay on. So you would have continuity already even without keeping the secretary of defense.

DAN SAGALYN: But retired Army Gen. Johnny Wilson, who publicly endorsed Obama during the campaign, says it makes sense to keep Gates for a short time while the new Obama political appointees get settled into their jobs at the Pentagon.

ARMY GEN. JOHNNY WILSON (Ret.): He ought to stay three to six months. That certainly in my view gives President-elect Obama to have his national security team nominated and in place, and all of the transitions and the briefings, and all of that have taken place. And the world at large and our enemies will know that there isn't any opportunity for them to try to take advantage of our transition.

DAN SAGALYN: One reason for keeping Gates, according to some defense analysts, is that it would signal that the Obama administration is interested in governing from the center, instead of the left wing of the Democratic Party. Peter Feaver, who served on the national security council staff from 2005 to 2007, says keeping Gates would allow the Obama administration to avoid some of the mistakes the Bush administration made when it took office.

PETER FEAVER, Duke University: It shows that President Obama is not going to come in blinded with an ABB mentality -- Anything But Bush, overturning Bush policies because they were done by President Bush, not because it makes sense to overturn them. Frankly, that was a limitation of the Bush team. In 2001, they came in with ABC mentality -- Anything But Clinton. And some of the Clinton policies needed to be overturned, some of them didn't, and the baby with thrown out with the bath water.

DAN SAGALYN: Feaver, now at Duke University, agrees the window for implementing changes in defense policy is during the first couple of years of any administration. But he doesn't think major shifts in policy are needed.

PETER FEAVER: There is some truth that the first couple of years is when you can make your biggest changes. But it's also not clear to me that the changes that are needed are so abruptly reversing previous policies that Secretary Gates couldn't implement them. I image that what kind of changes that would be responsible and prudent would involve changes of direction, course corrections, rather than abrupt reversals. And I would imagine that Secretary Gates could help implement them as well as anyone else could.

President Bush and his team have actually implemented a lot of sensible national security policies that the next administration would be wise to continue.

DAN SAGALYN: But to retired Brig. Gen. McGinnis, who campaigned with Barack Obama, wholesale changes are in order, and that is what the election was all about.

BRIG. GEN. DAVID MCGINNIS: He has a mandate. He won the election for a Democratic candidate fairly substantially, No. 1. And No. 2, the country, pretty well the majority of the country, feels we are headed in the wrong direction and need change.

DAN SAGALYN: Obama is expected to announce the members of his national security team after Thanksgiving.

For the Online NewsHour, this is Dan Sagalyn.