ABC News' Martha Raddatz and Jake Tapper -- who are developing a good record for breaking this sort of thing during the Obama transition -- report that current Defense Secretary Robert Gates will keep his job for at least the first year of the new administration. The two quote one unnamed "source close to the process" as saying "It is a done deal."
President Bush appointed Gates to replace former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld after the Republican defeat in the midterm elections of 2006. Gates is a veteran of Republican administrations, having served as deputy director of central intelligence under President Reagan and as deputy national security advisor and later director of central intelligence during the first Bush administration.
Gates "is expected to be rolled out immediately after the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend as part of a larger national security team," Raddatz and Tapper write. They say this team is "expected to include Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, as Secretary of State; Marine Gen. Jim Jones (Ret.) as National Security Adviser; Admiral Dennis Blair (Ret.) as Director of National Intelligence; and Dr. Susan Rice as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations."
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