Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is due to retire two weeks from now. The only leftover from the Bush Administration in President Barack Obama’s cabinet reflected on the war in Afghanistan and the future of American armed forces in interviews with Fox News Sunday and CNN’s State of the Union.

A number of American combat forces are scheduled to withdraw from Afghanistan this summer. Asked how many troops could start coming home, Gates cautioned in an interview with ABC last week that the president’s “judgement call has to be made in a context of a wide variety of issues.”

On Fox this Sunday, Gates reiterated that his job was to present the president with various options and lay out the potential complications that come with them. He refused to mention a specific number however so Chris Wallace asked instead what he thought of the administration’s strategy. “We have had a lot of success over the last fifteen months in Afghanistan,” he said, praising the “surge” initiated by President Obama. “The conditions on the ground are far better than they were a year ago.” The president, he added, would not jeopardize the gains made by the military under his watch. (more…)