Robert Gates Succession: Obama Passes Executive Order Changing Rules In Event Of Defense Secretary's Death

WASHINGTON — Who would act as defense secretary if the 66-year-old Robert Gates died or resigned and his deputy, Bill Lynn, couldn't do it?

President Barack Obama has decided the Army secretary – a position now held by former Republican Rep. John McHugh of New York – should get the job.

Obama's little-noticed March 1 executive order reverses President George W. Bush's doomsday plan, which bumped the service secretaries and elevated the most loyal advisers to the defense secretary at the time, Donald Rumsfeld.

Under the December 2005 order, the Pentagon's intelligence chief was third in line to be defense secretary. At the time, the position was held by Rumsfeld insider Stephen Cambone.

At the time, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the Bush changes were made because defense undersecretaries, such as Cambone, had a "broad knowledge and perspective of overall Defense Department operations," whereas the service leaders focused on training and equipping troops in their particular service.

But Whitman did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment on why Bush's order was reversed.

Bush had moved the Army secretary to No. 6 in the line of succession. Now, if Gates and Lynn were unable to fulfill their duties, next in line would be the Army secretary, followed by the Navy and Air Force secretaries. The undersecretary of defense for intelligence was dropped to No. 9.

Comments

[MadamRoma]

01:35 PM on 03/03/2010

Is he going to die, does HP know sometime that Mr Gates doesn't?

[vippy]

12:45 PM on 03/03/2010

Army Times said we will have wars until 2028. I don't think it matters much who is president. There are other powers that run this country.

[Bude]

11:56 AM on 03/03/2010

Is Gates retiring?

[springsm]

11:53 AM on 03/03/2010

It is obvious that most of the big generals in action now more or less with the wars in Afghanista­n and Iran are very potically ambitious. It is good to KNOW the answer to this question. They can stop the yes sir crap and get to business and stay to business. It is imperative that the line of command is known. I don't know that we all had to know it, but nowadays there is no keeping it out of the blogs. Actually it keeps people more honest perhaps.

[AxelDC]

09:45 AM on 03/03/2010

Bush put a political hack ahead of the Secretary of the Army?

Republican­s certainly get a lot of mileage out of the myth of being "strong on defense." They can politicize the Defense Department and no one calls them on it.

Good for the President for restoring a bit more sanity to our national security.

[jerryatthebeach]

06:17 AM on 03/03/2010

This is one decision I can agree on with the President.

[rougebaisers]

05:53 AM on 03/03/2010

Does it matter, really? The military industrial complex dictates war policy.

[grf67]

05:21 AM on 03/03/2010

Interestin­g, but the real question is why has Obama not nominated a new SECDEF?

[Jim Shaffer]

05:20 AM on 03/03/2010

Defense Secretary, what a great gig. Imagine the flow of a huge river of cash. Wow, talk about the power, the influence, the behind the scenes perks, the promises of a high paying job when your term is through.
OTOH, you better believe that those military contractor­s aren't going to let anyone who isn't a fin to their objectives anywhere near that post. - it's a question of national security and YOU don't need to know - Ha!
Obama keeps trying (to give the impression that he's trying), not that it'll make much difference­. He'll be president for a few years, the american military industrial complex is here to stay!

[MRb1000]

04:35 AM on 03/03/2010

Now we are acting stupid saying what if! Our country is strong along with its chain of command.

[murphthesurf3]

01:46 AM on 03/03/2010

The connection between the Pentagon's intelligen­ce director and the CIA is obvious. For Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld that was a comforting axis. Restoring the historic chain of succession simply means that Obama trusts that the broadly accepted historic order is the best one; that he does not want decision making driven by intelligen­ce given the very mixed record for trustworth­iness that intel info brings; and that he wants to emphasize the importance of the constituti­onal principle of transparen­t civilian authority over the military.

Like much of what Obama does.....m­akes good sense to me.

[buckbuck11]

07:29 AM on 03/03/2010

...and illustrate­s that it's taking time to undo all of the damage done by the Bush regime.

[LinkSync]

12:36 AM on 03/03/2010

Whoever it is should demand that military expenditur­es be cut by 2/3.
What we spend on it all is criminal.
And what we spend it on is criminal as well.
KBE etc.?
Lets agree to spend a Max of 1% on the military and another 1% on the state dept.
leave it at that while we get our house in order.

[Opus Loki]

03:29 AM on 03/03/2010

Spending 1% on the military is insane. All the freedoms you and I enjoy as Americans are because we have a strong military. That is just irresponsi­ble. Of course the military can be cut here and there; everything can but at 1% you would have the Cub Scouts with sling shots as our national defense mechanism. Feeding them alone would take up much of that.

[eXcommunicate]

05:55 AM on 03/03/2010

>All the freedoms you and I enjoy as Americans are because we have a strong military.

Yes, because we're in such a danger of being invaded by another country... @_@

[dollbaby]

12:21 AM on 03/03/2010

Bush's order was reversed beacuse rumsfeld wrote it. Obama simply went back to the ways things were before war was for profit for Cheney's companies.

[bluntobject]

11:55 PM on 03/02/2010

I know!! I know!!!!!

Sarah Palin?

[LinkSync]

12:32 AM on 03/03/2010

Lol.

[springsm]

11:07 PM on 03/02/2010

Gates is the best we could have at this time. He is far superior to Rumsfeld who had his own agenda which I think he and Cheney were working on under Bush I. However, it seems counter productive to have a military secretary as head of defense. Or is it that we should have one of the militarist­ic lets go to war folks to lead. We are a violent militarist­ic country do we need that in the defense department­. But Gates has been so much better than I thought he could be. I hope to gosh he isn't going to die on this watch...bu­t it is a good idea to have this worked out so there won't be any "I am in charge" misstateme­nts.

[LordByron13]

02:09 PM on 03/03/2010

Exactly.