Gates Takes On Pentagon

From Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates took his campaign to change the Pentagon's weapons-buying habits directly to the uniformed military Wednesday, telling an audience of young officers that military brass for too long viewed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as "exotic distractions."

Mr. Gates said that since his arrival at the Pentagon two years ago, he has repeatedly found the senior military leadership looking beyond current wars to future threats.

"I kept running into the fact that the Department of Defense as an institution -- which routinely complained that the rest of the government was not at war -- was itself not on a war footing, even as young Americans were fighting and dying every day," Mr. Gates said.

Read more ....

More News On Secretary of Defense Gates And The Pentagon

More On Robert Gate's Rational -- The Atlantic
Gates sees more changes to U.S. weapons in 2011 -- Reuters
Military services largely on board with Gates's defense budget -- Christian Science Monitor
Gates: Why I Stopped the Stealth Jets -- The Danger Room
Robert Gates answers questions on the F-35 and on the CSAR-X program -- Avionews
Gates ‘On Target’ With Defense Procurement Reform, Obama Says -- DefPro

My Comment: I am sure that many military contractors .... with just as many of the military brass ..... are not happy with the language that Sec. of Defense Gates has recently been using when "criticizing" them. But because of the position that they are in, they are going to keep their mouths shut.