Washington, January 08: A Pentagon spokesman has announced that US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will quit the Obama administration next year.
“Secretary Gates met with the president just before Christmas and gave him a commitment to stay on the job for at least another year,” said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell.
President Barack Obama and Gates agreed to revisit the issue later in 2010, Morrell added.
In late 2006, former President George W. Bush named Gates to the defense post as a replacement for Donald Rumsfeld.
After winning election in November 2008, Obama asked Gates to remain in the job and serve in his cabinet for an undetermined time.
From 1991 to 1993, Gates served as head of the Central Intelligence Agency and from 1989 to 1991 as deputy national security adviser to President George H.W. Bush.
——-Agencies