Below are comments made by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on the nomination of James Clapper as Director of National Intelligence at a press conference while Gates is in route to Azerbaijan:

SEC. GATES:  I wanted to say how pleased I am that the President has nominated my friend Jim Clapper to be the next DNI.  I probably know more about this job and the difficulties it entails as anybody.  As you may recall I was first offered the job in January 2005 and frankly in 2004 opposed the creation of the position because I thought it would be very complicated to make it work.  But what is really key, in my view, in making the DNI office work is the chemistry between the DNI and the other leaders of the intelligence community.  I know that some are looking for a strong executive big boss that tells everybody what to do but structurally that’s almost impossible with this job because virtually none of the heads of the sixteen intelligence agencies actually work for the DNI.  Over the past few years we have worked out arrangements, largely due to the efforts of Jim Clapper, to try and strengthen the DNI’s role by various side agreements between the Secretary of Defense and Director of CIA and the DNI, in terms of personnel appointments and things like that.  All of which is to say that what is really key for success in leading the intelligence community and for the DNI, in my view, is not only long experience and familiarity with the intelligence world, but the temperament to have the kind of constructive, positive chemistry with the other leaders of the intelligence community.  And General Clapper has that kind of chemistry, has had it all along.

I’ve known Jim for over twenty years now.  When I was Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) he was the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).  He has been retired from the Air Force for I think about 10 years.   He’s very independent minded.  But he is the consummate intelligence professional who has the respect of virtually everybody in the community.  He is the first person and actually the only person that I hired and brought with me when I became Secretary of Defense, to fill the job of Under Secretary for Intelligence.  I frankly, when the President first asked me about this, I kind of winced with pain because the idea of losing Jim at the Defense Department is a real loss for us.  But I think for those who are worried about him coming from too military of a background, if they look at his record as the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (USDI) and the reforms that he’s put in and his interactions with the civilian intelligence agencies you will see a record of somebody who can really get along with all of these folks. 

I know there are some on the Hill that have concerns about Jim in terms of having a military background.  I’ve seen some criticism that he wasn’t forthcoming enough.  Part of this in my view is a jurisdictional issue on the Hill itself.  I have never heard a single complaint from the armed services committees about Jim’s forthcomingness.   I think some of what you see is the jurisdictional conflict between the intelligence committees and the armed services committees in terms of who gets briefed on what.  But Jim has a strong, long record of not only adherence to Congressional oversight but support of it and enthusiastic cooperation and he has done things from the Department of Defense standpoint to significantly enhance the ability of our overseers on the Hill to do their job.  So I think the President could not have found a better person, a more experience person or with a better temperament to do this job and actually make it work, than Jim Clapper. 

Q: Just quickly on that Mr. Secretary, you say in 2004 you opposed the creation of the DNI even though clearly you support this nomination.  Have you come to believe the office itself now provides some utility or value?

SEC. GATES:  Well, I think it provides value and I think one thing that has added to the value frankly are some of the arrangements that we have reached since 2006, since I became SECDEF, to enhance the linkages.  I’ll give you one example, and it was Jim’s idea.  How do you give the DNI some reach into the Dept of Defense that has meaning?  Jim came up with the idea of double-hating himself as both the USDI but also as the Director of Military Intelligence.   And in that hat as Director of Military Intelligence he sits on the DNI’s executive council and participates as one of the agency heads if you will, on par with others within the DNI’s executive framework.  So it was Clapper’s idea.  How do we create an organic linkage between the Department of Def and the DNI?  And it was Jim’s idea to create this double-hatted arrangement.  So I think it’s an example of how he has actually worked to try to empower the DNI and help him do his job better.  And I think if you talk to Dennis Blair or Mike McConnell, his predecessor, they would tell you that Clapper has played exactly that kind of role.

Q: Do you think that more powers need to be invested in the DNI, such as the power to control budgets and so on?  Do you think more is needed to be done now that Clapper has been nominated?

SEC. GATES:  I thought that in 2004, and the Congress went in a different way.  One of the reasons I opposed the legislation was because I never believed the Congress would actually give the job all of the authorities it needed to be successful.  There was a lot of talk in those days about creating a Goldwater-Nichols for the intelligence community.  But what people never understood is that the only reason Goldwater-Nichols works in the Department of Defense is because at the end of the day everybody works for one person.  That’s not true in the intelligence community.  You know, we have intelligence units in the Treasury Department, in the State Department and all these other places.  Those cabinet officers are not going to allow their intelligence components to be run by somebody outside their department.  So what you need is somebody who can lead all of those people and bring them to work together rather than trying to command them to do things.  The analogy I’ve used is that the DNI is more comparable to a powerful congressional committee chair than it is to a CEO.  He has a lot of inherent authority in the law, but at the end of the day he has to bring people along through leadership and through accommodating their interest as well as what he thinks is in the national interest.   It’s his ability to get people to voluntarily work together especially, [that’s what] Jim brings to the job.

Q: Do you support further increases in the power of DNI, such as budget authority?

SEC. GATES:  First of all, that would require new legislation and I don’t see that being in the cards at this point.  But we have taken a lot of steps to try and give the DNI over the last, since I became Secretary of Defense, to try and empower the DNI on appointments.  I’ll give you another example: In the legislation the DNI is given certain authorities in terms of hiring people with the consent or agreement of the Secretary of Defense.  But the law is silent on him being able to fire anybody.  So the arrangement that I’ve worked out with the DNI was that either one of us could initiate the firing of a senior intelligence person, including in the Dept. of Defense, but it would take our agreement for that actually to happen.  And if we disagreed we would take that issue to the President.  So I think these are some of the work-arounds that we have developed over the last 3 ½ years that have served to strengthen the powers of the DNI.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called a Capitol Hill press conference Wednesday to unveil new light fixtures in the House cafeteria. The light fixtures cost $140,000 and will take almost 10 years to pay off in saved energy.
 
Architect of the Capitol Stephen Ayers told CNSNews.com that the new lights, along with motion sensors and automatic window shades, are a first for the House. The lights already have been installed in one Senate Committee room.
 
“We have a couple of applications,” Ayers said. “This is the first one in the House [and] we have another application that we’ve installed in the Senate – that’s in room SD-G50 in the Dirksen [Senate Office] Building. That’s a committee hearing room. We’re piloting this new technology.”
 
Ayers said that the new light fixtures and window shades were installed in the cafeteria, located in the basement of the Rayburn House Office Building, because the LED [light emitting diode] light fixtures have become much less expensive.
 
“It’s now becoming much more affordable, so we’re sort of kicking the tires on it for the moment. It seems to work terrific. It’s got great energy savings, and it’s got – we think – great lighting quality, and the price of the light fixtures just in the last year has come down significantly.”
 
Ayers said that the price had come down from $800 per fixture to $300, meaning that the lights would theoretically pay for themselves in less than 10 years, due to estimated reductions in electricity usage.
 
“I think this fixture was $800 a year ago, and it’s now just over $300, so in one year that’s a pretty significant savings – which allows us to begin using this kind of equipment and technology, because we’re able to get a good return on investment. At $800 a fixture we can’t get a good return on investment, but when it gets down to $300 – and I’m sure it will go even lower – we’re able to get a good return on investment.
 
“This particular room, with all of the technology, was about $140,000, which is less than a 10-year return on investment for us.”
 
Pelosi said that the new lights in the cafeteria would make the Capitol a “shining example of sustainability” and green technology.
 
“Three years ago House Democrats launched our Green the Capitol initiative, ensuring that our nation’s leaders remain responsible stewards of our environment,” Pelosi told the small crowd of reporters and staff gathered in the cafeteria.
 
“Today, in that same tradition, we gather to renew that pledge, taking one step forward in our effort to make this Capitol of the United States, this beacon of freedom and liberty, a shining example of sustainability,” she added.
 
Pelosi said that the new light fixtures and window shades – which raise and lower based on the level of sunlight coming through the windows – would “set the standard for sustainable living nationwide.”
 
“In making this change we are flipping the switch on a greener future for Congress and setting the standard for sustainable living nationwide,” Pelosi declared.

Below is a brief excerpt from a press conference that took place Tuesday from the Pentagon. the presenter was Defense Department Secretary Robert Gates, who was in Ankara, Turkey:

Spokesman Morrell:  Thank you all for coming today.  Sorry, we are running a little bit late.  The meetings have run long.  So, we are going to have a little less time.  No more than a half hour.  So, let’s move quickly and I want to get as many of our Turkish friends as possible.  So, without further ado, the Secretary and then to the Turkish press and if there’s time, we will go to the American press.

Secretary Gates:  Fire away.

Q:  Good morning sir.  My name is Murat Yetkin and I work for Radikal.  Perhaps you would like to tell us about your contacts with the Defense Minister and the Chief of the General Staff.  We’re interested on the cooperation in Iraq and against terrorism, including the PKK.

Secretary Gates:  Both meetings ran long.  As a matter of fact, at the meeting with the Defense Minister we spent a good bit of time talking about Afghanistan, about missile defense, NATO missile defense, and the military-to-military relationship between the two countries. Virtually all of my time with the Chief of the General Staff was spent discussing Afghanistan and efforts against the PKK.

Q:  Any details — did you ask more troops?

Secretary Gates:  No, I didn’t ask for more troops.  I told both of them how impressed we have been by Turkey’s contribution in Afghanistan and how important it is.   It is a varied role — there’ are about 1700 troops, 2 provincial reconstruction teams, several operational mentoring and advising teams and command of regional command capital, Kabul.  So it’s a very diverse set of responsibilities and we are very pleased to have Turkey in Afghanistan working with all of us as partners.

Q:  Metahan Demir from Hurriyet newspaper.  We are wondering about the details of your talks regarding the fight against the PKK because it has been on the agenda in Turkey for a long time and Turkey has been suffering from this terrorism for along time.  Also it was on the agenda in the past, as you may remember — cooperation with the United States.  Could you detail, or give us any specific information, about what kind of new cooperation was discussed between the two sides, during these talks, against PKK?  Any further operation to capture the leading names of the organization? Or, any joint operation in Northern Iraq in the future?

Secretary Gates:  Well, I don’t think any purpose would be served in sharing with you any information about any operations that may or may not be considered. I will tell you that in 2007, President Bush directed that more assistance from America be given to Turkey’s fight against the PKK.  It fell on me to implement that beginning in 2007-2008 in terms of significant additional intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities and other kinds of equipment.

We have continued that. I offered during my visit here to, when I return to Washington, to see if there are more capabilities that we can share with Turkey in terms of taking on this threat. When General Odierno was here there was discussion of an action plan going forward.  So I think what we are seeing is a further intensification of the cooperation in an effort to deal with this threat. I would also say, as the General told me, the ultimate solution to this is simply not killing everybody.  In that vein, I met with President Barzani of the KRG in Washington last week. We talked about the importance of the KRG putting pressure on the PKK to abandon violence as a political tool.  So, I think there’s a broad range of cooperation and we talked about ways in which it can be further expanded.

To view the entire press conference in its entirety, please click here.

Marilyn Thomas, Deputy for Budget, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force and Maj Gen Alfred Flowers, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Budget talk to reporters.

Below is a brief excerpt from a press conference, presented by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, from India:

SEC. GATES: Good morning, and thank you all for being here. I’ve just come from a meeting with the Minister of Defense and last night met with the External Affairs Minister and the Prime Minister. These discussions just two months after Prime Minister Singh’s trip to Washington were an opportunity to continue strengthening ties that are indispensable to the future peace and prosperity of both our nations.

President Barack Obama is in Tokyo this morning. He told reporters at a press conference Monday, he’s still weighing the options concerning a troop increase in Afghanistan.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates spoke out against leaks to the media on both Afghanistan and the shootings at Fort Hood.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates got a behind the scenes look at the newest all-terrain vehicles when he toured a production plant Thursday in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Investigators are expected to announce charges stemming from last week’s shooting at Fort Hood, TX.