Robert Gates, Secretary Of Defense | featured news

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Friday he was disappointed by criticism from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates over the release of about 75,000 pages of U.S. documents related to the war in Afghanistan.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told troops in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday they would soon be part of a "decisive phase" in the war -- an operation to impose control over the Taliban heartland of Kandahar province.

Robert Gates The Secretary of Defense will continue in that position in the Obama administration for at least another year, a Pentagon spokesman said Thursday. "Secretary Gates met with the president just before Christmas and gave him a commitment to stay on the job for at least another year," Geoff Morrell, deputy assistant secretary of defense and Pentagon press secretary, told CNN. Gates served as Secretary of Defense in the last two years of the Bush administration and stayed on in the post when President Obama took office.