Gates: Yes... No... Maybe?

Times change. Situations change. Allegiances change. Principles change. Morals change. So, why not change your mind every few years? Defense Sec. Gates seems pretty flexible. First we need strong defenses and technology... and then we can get by. Save one or two $ billion on a critical defense systems by not building them... who needs advanced fighter planes and long-rang missile defense... and round out those numbers on give-aways to political cronies.

A Pragmatist, Gates Reshapes Past Policies He Backed

By PETER BAKER and THOM SHANKER

Published: September 21, 2009

WASHINGTON — On his tenth day on the job, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates signed off on an ambitious if politically charged plan to build a new missile shield in Europe. Just two weeks later, he supported an even more wrenching decision to send additional American troops to Iraq, into a war that was not going well.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has played a central role in reshaping defense policy.

That was nearly three years, one president and a political lifetime ago. Now serving Barack Obama instead of George W. Bush, Mr. Gates just recommended jettisoning his own missile defense program in favor of a reformulated version and once again is wrestling with whether to send more troops abroad, in this case to Afghanistan.

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