Secretary of Defense Bob Gates does not like his job, the cabinet secretary said in a recent interview.
In a profile airing on 60 Minutes last night, Gates accidentally called himself the “Secretary of War” and described the painfulness of sending soldiers into war.
“The truth of the matter is being Secretary of War in a time of war is a very painful thing,” Gates told CBS’s Katie Couris. “And it’s not a job anybody should like. How can you like a job when you go to Walter Reed and you know you sent those young men and women in harm’s way? Every single person in combat today I sent there. And and I never forget that for a second. So no, I don’t enjoy my job. “
Gates also offered a colorful if somewhat curt reserved analysis of the situation in Afghanistan. Pressed on whether U.S. soldiers would be gone from the country within four years, Gates said answering that would require too many hypotheticals– what he called a “fairy story.”
Pakistan intelligence services, he said, was “pay[ing] both sides” in Afghanistan because they’re unsure who will win.
And the fact that we are not fighting the Islamic militants whom we funded and supported during the Cold War simply proves “that history is ironic.”
Offering a tepid comparison of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Gates labeled his old boss “committed, questioning, [and] eager to make a decision and move on.” Obama, on the other hand, is “deliberative, decisive and calm.”