WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- A shake-up at the Pentagon is expected if the U.S. Senate confirms former CIA Director Robert Gates as secretary of Defense, Voice of America reported.
Gates was nominated Wednesday by U.S. President George Bush after Donald Rumsfeld announced his resignation. Observers said Gates' more than 20 years with the CIA pointed to changes at the Pentagon.
"He likes to think of himself as someone who shakes things up," Georgetown University professor Paul Pillar, a former senior career intelligence officer, told Voice of America. "I am sure, if he is confirmed as secretary of Defense, over the first several weeks and months of his tenure, there will be news stories coming out about (how) he has appointed 50 different task forces to look at new ways of doing things and then issuing various directives to the department to change this and change that."
Gates led the CIA from 1991-93 and has since become president of Texas A&M University.
A date for his Senate confirmation hearings has not been set, although the outgoing chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, U.S. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said it was likely "in the coming weeks," the report said.
