Gates to stay as U.S. defense secretary: report

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama moved closer to assembling his national security team on Tuesday, with sources saying Robert Gates would likely keep his job as defense secretary and retired Marine Gen. James Jones be named national security adviser.

The Politico news website said Gates had agreed to remain defense secretary in a new Democratic administration and reported that Jones would be named as the top security adviser to Obama.

Quoting officials in both the Democratic and Republican parties, Politico said the announcements would be made early next week when Obama unveils a national security team including New York Sen. Hillary Clinton as his nominee for secretary of state.

Officials at Obama's transition office declined to comment on the report.

Other news outlets, including ABC and Fox, also reported that Gates would stay on at the Pentagon, which had been widely suggested as a possibility for weeks.

But sources knowledgeable about the transition said they did not believe that either Gates or Jones had reached final agreements with Obama, and that there were outstanding issues unresolved for Gates in particular.

A senior Democratic source told Reuters that Obama intends to ask Gates to remain and that Gates would likely do so. But the source said Gates was still discussing which of his staff he could keep in place under the Obama administration.

"There's an 85 percent chance he's going to stay," said a second source familiar with the transition.

That source said Gates would likely remain in the job for a year or more but was concerned about being viewed as a "lame duck" defense chief if a formal timetable were imposed.

STAFF ISSUES

"There are also issues about who he can keep on his staff and who his deputy's going to be. There are a lot of Democrats who want to assume senior positions at the Pentagon and don't want to be left out in the cold," the source said.

A former CIA director, Gates was president of Texas A&M University when President George W. Bush asked him to take over the U.S. Department of Defense from the combative Donald Rumsfeld in 2006.

Gates, 65, is seen by analysts as one of the last credible voices in the Bush administration. He set about putting things back on an even keel with a low-key approach that sought to build constructive relationships but also betrayed a steely firmness of purpose in the two U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A source close to Jones denied there was an agreement between Obama and the former Marine commandant who also led of U.S. and NATO forces in Europe.

"There definitely have been discussions but there hasn't been any official decision. Vetting and discussions are still taking place on both sides," the source said.