STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, Host:
The man who now runs the Pentagon is quieter than the celebrity he replaced. He also has less time than Donald Rumsfeld did. Secretary Robert Gates has finished a year in the job and has about a year to go. The time is relatively short considering his two biggest problems - wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
INSKEEP: We sat down to talk with Gates about those conflicts. He faces decisions about pulling troops out. Five brigades are leaving Iraq soon.
MONTAGNE: Or when to send troops in. Just over 3,000 more are now headed to Afghanistan. It's a balancing act.
INSKEEP: Is Iran the greatest threat that the United States is likely to face in the final year of this administration?
ROBERT GATES: Well, I think Iran is certainly one of the most significant challenges. We continue to be concerned about their ongoing enrichment programs, their unwillingness to suspend in the face of broad international pressure to do so. So I think it will continue to be a challenge.
INSKEEP: Is there a reason you describe them as a challenge rather than a threat?
GATES: Well, when I think of a threat, I think of a direct military threat. And while the jury is out in terms of whether they have eased up on their support to those opposing us in Iraq, I don't see the Iranians, in the near term, as a direct military threat to United States.
INSKEEP: You have commented on Iran's role in Afghanistan, which is the next country that I want to ask about. Do you expect that NATO, which is currently involved in combat operations in the southern part of the country, will have a significantly different role in Afghanistan one year from now?
GATES: No, I think the role will be very similar. And I think it's one that combines military action with economic development and civic action. Our NATO allies are playing a significant role, particularly Canada and the United Kingdom and the Dutch. This kind of role, even with the addition of our Marines, will remain essentially the same.
INSKEEP: Although you mention Canada - this is a country where the government is under a lot of domestic political pressure because of the casualties they have suffered. Are you concerned that if they remain in that exposed position that you could end up losing an ally as opposed to perhaps putting them in a less exposed area of the country?
GATES: My hope is that the addition of the Marines will provide the kind of help that will reduce the levels of casualties. Part of the problem that NATO confronts is that a number of governments are present in Afghanistan. But many of them are in minority or coalition governments where support for the activity in Afghanistan is fragile, if not difficult to come by. And one of the reasons why I decided to tone down the public criticism is that, frankly, I think they're doing as much as they can.
INSKEEP: Should I understand you to mean that under ideal circumstances you wouldn't have to be sending extra U.S. troops to Afghanistan right now, that NATO might be putting an extra 3,000 troops in there?
GATES: Well, I think certainly in the near term that's the case. We clearly had an unmet requirement from the NATO commander in Afghanistan. We are providing 2200 Marines and we will partially satisfy the training requirement with another 1,000 Marines.
INSKEEP: Is there a danger that as you try to reduce the strain on the U.S. armed forces by pulling some troops out of Iraq, if possible, over the coming months, that that's going to be canceled out, at least partly by sending more troops to Afghanistan?
GATES: Well, we certainly don't have any plans to send further troops to Afghanistan beyond what we've just announced.
INSKEEP: As you look at your multiple roles of focusing on Afghanistan, focusing on Iraq, focusing on the overall health of the armed forces, are you in a situation where you may need for the health of the armed forces to bring out troops from Iraq more rapidly than General Petraeus might like?
GATES: And my hope is there will be agreement. If not, the president will be in a position to hear independently from each of those groups and make his own evaluation and decisions.
INSKEEP: But aren't you going to hear from the military personnel about the need to reduce the operational tempo for the armed forces overall, which is a demand to bring troops out of Iraq, in effect regardless of the situation?
GATES: Well, first of all, taking five brigade combat teams out of Iraq does relieve the pressure to some extent. And I think we are on a path where there is some reasonable chance that by next fall, units that are deploying will no longer have to have a 15-month deployment.
INSKEEP: Do you think that by the time this administration leaves office in about a year that the military will be in a sustainable position?
GATES: Well, I think that withdrawal of the five brigade combat teams will be in a sustainable position. I think that as the drawdowns continue in Iraq, stress on the force will continue to be relieved.
INSKEEP: I'm trying to get the numbers in my head. You'd go down to maybe 135, 140,000 troops in Iraq? That's a sustainable number?
GATES: You can debate, and people do debate in this building, what that number is, and I'm not going to get into those numbers. The goal here is to be in a position to have some modest-size force, considerably smaller than the one we have now for some years to come.
INSKEEP: Well, given that, do you assume, just for planning purposes, that the administration that follows you will pursue roughly the same policy in Iraq?
GATES: And my goal is to try and put the situation in Iraq in the best possible place for the next president so that we can have a sustained policy in Iraq. My whole experience is shaped by the Cold War, where we followed a basic strategy that had bipartisan support through multiple presidencies. Iraq is a long-term problem.
INSKEEP: Does your experience in the Cold War also inform some of your recent remarks about so-called soft power? You - I'll summarize - encouraged the United States to spend more money and effort on non-military means of influence abroad: diplomacy, improving the U.S. image, and so forth.
GATES: Absolutely. I mean, when the Cold War was at its height, the U.S. Agency for International Development had something like 16,000 employees. It has 3,000 now. One of the points that I make, if you took all foreign service officers in the world - about 6,600 - it would not be sufficient to man one carrier strike group. And right now, frankly, I think that the diplomacy, international economic assistance and so on have been significantly weakened.
INSKEEP: Isn't there, though, a basic budget choice that someone is going to have to make, though? Either you get six more fighter planes, for example, or you get a few thousand extra foreign service officers?
GATES: Well, the reality is that the cost of increasing your capabilities on the diplomatic, economic side is really pretty modest. The entire State Department budget is $36 billion. We spend that in the Pentagon on health care.
INSKEEP: Would you say it would be worth it to slow down the growth of the Defense Department budget to allow for greater diplomacy in other efforts?
GATES: Well, I don't think you'll ever find a secretary of defense who'll say it's a good idea to cut the Defense Department budget.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
INSKEEP: Secretary Gates, thanks very much.
GATES: My pleasure.
INSKEEP: He spoke with us at the Pentagon yesterday. And after Secretary Robert Gates stood up, he said he was going to Capitol Hill. The next Pentagon budget goes to Congress early next month.