Obama goes for experience

2008-11-26 11:42

Washington - Barack Obama's campaign credo: Change is good. President-elect Barack Obama's credo: When it comes to war and peace, maybe wisdom is better.

Obama has assembled a national security brain trust populated by greybeard establishment figures with decades of combined experience and even a few medals. He is entrusting critical wartime management to people with unassailable credentials and low buzz factor.

The best example of the Obama Battleplan Version 2.0 is Robert Gates.

Obama's insurgent candidacy was founded on his opposition to the Iraq war and a promise to end it, fast. But with a crushing global financial crisis supplanting Iraq as the No 1 priority, the Democrat has turned to the very man running the Iraq and Afghan wars for the current Republican president, officials confirmed to The Associated Press.

Gates, who has served as President George W Bush's defence secretary for two years, will remain in the Cabinet for some time, probably a year, according to an official familiar with discussions between him and the president-elect. His appointment would fulfil an Obama pledge to include a Republican in his Cabinet.

A source close to the current Pentagon leadership cautioned that Gates had not agreed to a specific exit date. Like those describing Obama's job offers, the source spoke on condition of anonymity because Obama has not announced the personnel choices.

For the critical inside job of national security adviser, Obama wants a 1.93m retired Marine general who hung his hat most recently at the US Chamber of Commerce. A Democratic official said retired Marine Gen James Jones was Obama's pick to head the National Security Council, the part of the White House structure that deals with foreign policy.

No liberal

Jones, 64, has been a respectful critic of some Bush administration war strategy, especially in Afghanistan, and his priorities and world view seem in line with Obama's. But he's no liberal. The former Nato Supreme Allied Commander in Europe was named last year to head an energy initiative for the Republican-friendly Chamber of Commerce, and he also served as a special Mideast peace adviser for the Bush administration.

Democratic officials earlier confirmed that Obama had offered the prestigious post of secretary of state to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The Clinton pick brings a vanquished opponent into Obama's fold. It also means the 47-year-old Obama is hiring a respected foreign policy wonk who argued during the tense Democratic primary that she was the person you really wanted answering that 03:00 phone call of doom.

Obama is expected to announce his national security roster next week.

"You have a young president still trying to establish his bona fides and he has to have a seasoned team," said Stephen Flanagan, director of the international security programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

Where do you go to get a seasoned team? Well, to people seasoned in one previous administration or another.

Flanagan counts Gates and Jones as career public servants without a strong ideological stamp. Clinton, 61, may carry ideological baggage, but she also brings a record of bipartisan co-operation in the Senate and tested Midwestern grit and determination.

Strong Republican lineage

The Gates pick affords Obama some time to cope with the crumbling economy even as it risks disappointing the anti-war Democrats who launched his candidacy.

Gates was a member of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group and is widely respected by Democrats in Congress, but he retains strong Republican lineage.

The 65-year-old climbed the CIA bureaucracy from an entry-level position to become director under President George HW Bush. He also served on the elder Bush's National Security Council, as he had for Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

Gates helped lead US efforts to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan in the 1980s while at the CIA and was deputy national security adviser during Operation Desert Storm, the first US-led invasion of Iraq.

Gates is a close friend of the Bush family. He was interim dean of the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M and became the university's president in 2002. The school is home to the elder Bush's presidential library.

When the younger Bush called, Gates reluctantly left his university post two years ago to take over the Pentagon from the rancorous Donald H Rumsfeld.

Gates spokesperson Geoff Morrell would not confirm that Gates has been offered the job by Obama.

'It's more about the policy'

"He has never closed the door on the possibility of serving if needed, but his preference has always been to go back home," when the Bush administration ends, Morrell said.

Gates supported the Iraq war and the military build-up there, although he has also endorsed new efforts to draw down forces in Iraq and beef up troop numbers in Afghanistan - a strategy also voiced by Obama.

Gates has won praise from Democrats for his willingness to work with all sides on Capitol Hill and his moves to swiftly remove Pentagon leaders who he believed were not performing. During his brief tenure he has fired the Army and Air Force secretaries as well as the Air Force chief of staff.

Jon Soltz, an Iraq war veteran and chairperson of VoteVets.org, a veterans advocacy group, said his group has been hard on the Bush administration but holds respect for Gates.

"He comes across as very honest, and has a lot of humility," Soltz said. And he's not worried that Gates will be hobbled by his previous associations.

"It's more about the policy than it is about the person in that role. It's the commander in chief that guides policy."

- AP