Nov 12, 2009 3:36 PM

Gates to War Strategy Leakers: STFU

When Defense Secretary Bob Gates wanted to overhaul the Pentagon’s budget earlier this year, he took the unprecedented step on making everyone involved sign non-disclosure agreements. His staff set up an exclusive reading room for the financial documents. Only top-ranking generals—four stars—were allowed inside, and they weren’t permitted to take the briefings out. In meetings, […]

When Defense Secretary Bob Gates wanted to overhaul the Pentagon's budget earlier this year, he took the unprecedented step on making everyone involved sign non-disclosure agreements. His staff set up an exclusive reading room for the financial documents. Only top-ranking generals—four stars—were allowed inside, and they weren't permitted to take the briefings out. In meetings, the CIA-chief-turned-Pentagon-leader wouldn't say outright what he wanted to do with a given program; aides were forced to keep a running ledger of what they *thought *Gates would decide. It was a little cumbersome, but it meant no one could blab to Congress or to a blogger, and start a rear-guard action against the budget. Even after Gates made his choices, and went to the White House to present his budget, Gates brought a range of options instead of a final, written plan. It was another defense against leaks from an old Washington hand who knew the value of keeping private deliberations private.

Now Team Obama is wrestling with even bigger choices, about what the hell to do with the Afghanistan mess. Minutes after meetings are over, Spencer Ackerman has detailed descriptions of what went down. Supposedly-secret cables from Ambassador and former top commander Karl Eikenberry are (http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/1109/The_Eikenberry_memo_and_the_leak_war_more_pushback_against_a_nudgey_Pentagon_.html). And Gates, for one, has had it.

"Everybody out there ought to just shut up," he told reporters earlier today.

*Gates said he has little doubt that some of those leaks have come from within the Defense Department. "If I found out who" was involved, he said, "it would probably be a career ender." *

Gates cemented his reputation in Washington in the early 90s, when he ran the Deputies Committee, an interagency group responsible for the nuts and bolts of national security policy. The committee was a rambling, inconclusive mess. Gates reined it in, ensuring no meeting lasted longer than an hour and that every one ended with a decision.

I wonder: What does he think of the Obama administration's 11-month quest to settle on a strategy in Afghanistan?

Eliot Cohen, a former State Department official in the Bush administration and the author of Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime, calls the process "a recipe for disaster... They proclaim a strategy in March, get the bill, and go into shock. Endless meetings, and now increasingly bitter internal divisions."

Does Gates agree? Is he as annoyed about the meandering process as he is about the leaks that are springing along the way?

[Photo: DOD]