Robert Gates: “We're not just going to sit on our hands, waiting for the outcome of this election and for the emergence of a government…”

He would be candid and honest, willing to tell the President straight from the shoulder what he needs to hear.

I think the only thing I would've said is that a lot of this could've been done sooner.

Such an attack would make a nuclear-armed Iran inevitable.

the only way I could get significant new or additional equipment to commanders in the field in weeks or months--not years--was to take control of the problem myself through special task forces and ad hoc processes.