Larry Di Rita, a close confidant of former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, criticized President-elect Barack Obama's expected retention of Defense Secretary Robert Gates as a "safe decision" that maintains the "status quo" of those who resist broad efforts to transform the Defense Department.
In a blog posting on National Review Online, Di Rita, who served in several Pentagon jobs under Rumsfeld from 2001 to 2006, writes that Gates focused on Iraq and Afghanistan at the cost of carrying on Rumsfeld's efforts to bring about "the most rapid and profound transformation" of the defense establishment since 1947.
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