The Issues
President Bush hired Gates to preside over - and tweak – Washington’s Iraq and Afghanistan policies. During his tenure under Bush, Gates did just that, leaving management of Pentagon budgeting, procurement and long-term strategic planning to his deputy, Gordon England, who has since stepped down.
Pentagon Budget Cuts
But that all changed on April 6, 2007, when Gates held a news conference to announce a major change in Pentagon spending priorities in the 2010 Defense Department budget. Gates said the department was seeking to shift spending from complicated and futuristic weapons that often take years to develop and land with huge cost overruns, to weapons more likely to benefit troops fighting today's unconventional wars.The plans drew ire from lawmakers.
In that announcement, Gates made some controversial decisions on key weapons programs. He said that the Navy would purchase just three additional DDG-1000 destroyers, a ship whose costs have ballooned over the years, and then return to making the Arleigh-Burke class destroyer. Gates announced a halt to production of the Air Force's F-22 fighter at 187 jets, four more than it has currently, and cuts to the Future Combat Systems program that has been in production for years and had envisioned replacing heavily armored vehicles with less protected ones because of improved surveillance capabilities.
But Gates clashed with senior lawmakers over the troubled F-22 program in spring 2009. After it was approved by the House, Gates gave a "sometimes withering" July 2009 speech at the Economic Club of Chicago in which he asked: “If we can’t get this right, what on earth can we get right? It is time to draw the line on doing defense business as usual.”
Gates ultimately won the F-22 battle, but there were many more to come.
Iraq
There is little doubt, however, that Gates’ primary task will be managing the Iraq war and helping determine how to proceed in Afghanistan, where Obama announced in early 2009 an influx of 17,000 additional troops.
Gates spent much of his tenure at the Pentagon arguing in favor of the Bush administration’s resistance to rigid withdrawal timelines. “I would urge our nation’s leaders to implement strategies that, while reducing our presence in Iraq steadily, are cautious and flexible and take into account the advice of our senior commanders and military leaders,” Gates told a congressional panel. “I would also urge our leaders to keep in mind that we should expect to be involved in Iraq for years to come, though in changing and increasingly limited ways."
But since the 2008 presidential election – and, perhaps more importantly, since Washington and Baghdad inked a security pact that includes a 2011 withdrawal timeframe – Gates has softened his rhetoric. In early 2009, Obama announced that most U.S. troops will leave Iraq by Aug. 31, 2010, but that a force of about 35,000 to 50,000 were likely to remain there until the end of 2011.
The U.S.-Iraqi agreement is structured in two major phases: first, it mandates that U.S. combat troops be out of Iraqi cities and towns by June 30, 2011; and second, it requires all U.S. forces to be completely out of Iraq by the end of 2011.
In short, Gates has said, the security pact was a game-changer. An important “bridge has been crossed," Gates said during a December 2008 press conference. "And so the question [now] is: How do we do this in a responsible way?" In July 2009, Gates argued that American troops could leave Iraq even earlier then expected because violence had decreased.
Afghanistan
On Afghanistan policy, there appears to be a clear agreement between Obama and Gates that as the U.S. footprint in Iraq lessens, its presence in Afghanistan can be increased. Obama even quoted Gates while offering a glimpse of his thinking about the Afghanistan conflict. “We will ensure that we have the strategy and resources to succeed against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. As Bob said not too long ago, Afghanistan is where the War on Terror began, and it is where it must end.”
In March 2009, Gates implemented Obama's decision to send 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and significantly increase U.S. attention on the deteriorating situation there.
But in fall 2009, Gates was in the middle of a fierce power struggle between his handpicked Afghan commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, and Obama administration aides over the future of Afghan policy. McChrystal argued that the situation was deterioting rapidly in Afghanistan and needed a major troop boost, while others like Vice President Joe Biden, said that the U.S. should focus on al-Qaeda, not the Taliban.
Closing Guantanamo
Obama and Gates also appears to agree on several other key issues, such as closing the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama plans to shutter the prison; Gates was one of the first Bush administration officials to come out in favor of closing the facility. "I think it is possible to close it," Gates said Dec. 2. "Trying to move forward on that, at least from my standpoint, should be a high priority."
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