Gates to stay on as defense secretary

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a holdover from the Bush administration, will remain in his Cabinet post for at least another year, his spokesman said Thursday.

Gates, who has said he considers himself a Republican, told President Barack Obama in December that he would stay on at least through the end of 2010, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told The Associated Press.

Obama had asked Gates to stay on shortly after Obama won the 2008 presidential election. The move was meant to maintain stability in a time of two wars, and made good on an Obama promise to include Republicans among his close advisers.

Gates’ tenure in the Obama administration was never spelled out, but was assumed to be for at least one year. A year into the Obama administration, Gates appears to be a key adviser and has showed no sign that he intended to be a short-timer.

“They agreed to revisit this issue again later this year,” but the commitment is open-ended, Morrell said.

Gates, 66, “certainly looks forward to one day retiring to his family home in the Pacific Northwest,” Morrell said.

The White House had no immediate comment.

Keeping Gates on for at least a year means he will be in place to manage the expansion of the Afghanistan war through the summer, and to look toward the first U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan planned for the summer of 2011. He also would oversee the halving of U.S. forces in Iraq to about 50,000.

Gates served as President George W. Bush’s defense secretary for two years.

A former CIA chief with long experience in government, Gates was chosen for the defense job as a soothing presence after the turbulent years of Donald H. Rumsfeld.