U.S. Secretary Of Defense Gates Talks Bluntly With 15 Days Left Before Retirement

GREETING SENATORS - Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates greets Sens. Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii and Patrick Leahy of Vermont before a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee on the Defense Department's fiscal 2012 budget at the Dirksen Senate Office in Washington, D.C., June 15, 2011. Inouye is committee chairman. DOD photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley

Exit Near, Gates Speaks Bluntly of U.S. Allies -- New York Times

WASHINGTON—Robert M. Gates has 15 days left as secretary of defense — just ask him — and has become ever more unleashed from the constraints of the job.

So in a hearing on Wednesday, when Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, demanded to know how long the United States would support Pakistan, or as he put it, “governments that lie to us,” Mr. Gates, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, had an unvarnished answer.

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