Gates retires after presiding over two wars

Photo/FILE

US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates (left) shakes hands with Afghan President Hamid Karzai during a news conference in Kabul December 8, 2009.

WASHINGTON, Wednesday

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who oversaw attempts to salvage troubled wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, retires on Thursday after a stint that won him praise across the political spectrum.

The 67-year-old Washington insider rose through the ranks of the CIA during the Cold War to become the spy agency’s director before returning to government to take over as defence chief at a fraught moment in the Iraq conflict.

Mr Gates began his four-and-a-half-year Pentagon stint by helping to manage the troop surge credited with defusing spiraling violence in Iraq, a result he says is his most important accomplishment.

“I think, had we left here (Iraq) with our tail between our legs and with chaos, it would have been very bad for our army and for our military,” the understated Kansan, known for plain speaking and pragmatism, told CBS news.

Former president George W. Bush named Gates in 2006 to the Pentagon job to succeed the combative Donald Rumsfeld, who had become a lightning rod for criticism over the controversial Iraq war and the handling of detainees.

In the aftermath of the turbulent Rumsfeld era, Mr Gates eased tensions and repaired relations with the military brass, Congress and allies abroad.

But after more than four years as what he called “secretary of war,” the weight of the job began to show. His voice would often crack with emotion when he spoke to young soldiers in the field.

When President Barack Obama called on Gates to stay on as Pentagon chief in 2009, he became the first defence secretary to be asked to remain in office by a newly elected president, a testament in part to his vaunted reputation in Congress — where lawmakers from both parties rarely criticized him.