Profile: Robert Gates

Mr Gates has won plaudits on both sides of the US political spectrum

Robert Gates became the 22nd Secretary of Defense in December 2006 under a Republican president, but he is now set to continue in the role under a Democratic commander-in-chief.

President-elect Barack Obama has decided to keep Mr Gates at the Pentagon, and has asked him to oversee the incoming administration's top international priority: withdrawing US troops from Iraq.

Since becoming defence secretary, Mr Gates has won plaudits from both sides of the aisle for his handling of the troop surge in Iraq, and has been given credit for the decline in violence in the country.

He accepted the job at a particularly low ebb in the US involvement in Iraq.

His reluctance was evident at a Senate confirmation hearing in December 2006 when he told senators: "I did not want this job. I'm doing it because I love my country."

At the time, he told senators that the US was not winning the war and a change of tactics was needed.

"We're fighting against terrorism worldwide and we face other serious challenges to peace and our security. I believe the outcome of these conflicts will shape our world for decades to come," Mr Gates said when first nominated.

Mr Gates had been a member of the Iraq Study Group, led by his former colleague James Baker, which had suggested major changes to US policy in Iraq.

But as defence secretary, he carried out President Bush's orders to send more troops to the country, and was respected by military leaders, as well as by his political masters in Washington.

CIA career

He has experience in both intelligence and covert action.

He played a key role in US policy in the first Gulf War, in the negotiations over the Iran hostage crisis, and in the US response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

And he was credited with rebuilding morale at the CIA after a series of congressional investigations in the 1970s and 1980s.

The appointment of Mr Gates, who was a member of Mr Bush's father's administration, signalled a return to a more realist approach to US foreign policy, rather than the neo-conservative approach backed by his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld.

Mr Gates, 65, has spent most of his career as an official at the Central Intelligence Agency, where he rose to become director of the agency under the first President Bush in 1991, a position he held until 1993.

Mr Gates' early career was dogged with controversy, particularly over the Iran-Contra issue, and his first nomination as CIA director was withdrawn by Ronald Reagan in 1987.

Before he became defence secretary in 2006, Mr Gates was the president of Texas A&M University, one of the largest universities in the US.

He was reportedly the first choice of President George W Bush to become the US intelligence czar in 2005, an appointment which eventually went to John Negroponte after he turned it down.

That post was created to rectify weaknesses in co-ordinating US intelligence after 9/11, but Mr Gates expressed concern that the post might not have the clout needed to be effective.

Iran-Contra

Robert Gates, who was born in Wichita, Kansas, joined the CIA in 1966 after attending William and Mary College and completing graduate work at Indiana University (later receiving a PhD in international relations at Georgetown).

He served six presidents, and was the only career officer in CIA history to rise from entry-level position to director.

In his career, Mr Gates also served on the White House national security staff in 1974-79, and became deputy national security adviser to the first President Bush before he became CIA director.

But the most controversial moment in his career was the 1982-86 period when he rose through the CIA's top echelons to become acting director.

As such, he was in a position to know about the so-called Iran-Contra scandal, which involved the illegal diversion of funds from the sale of arms to Iran to fund the Contras in their fight against the left-wing Sandinistas who had taken power in Nicaragua.

Mr Gates was investigated by the office of the independent counsel in 1991, but was never prosecuted for any offence.

Cold warrior

In his book, From the Shadows, published in 1996, Mr Gates defended the role of the CIA in undertaking covert action which, he argued, helped to win the Cold War.

In a speech in 1999, Mr Gates said that its most important role was in Afghanistan.

"CIA had important successes in covert action. Perhaps the most consequential of all was Afghanistan where CIA, with its management, funnelled billions of dollars in supplies and weapons to the mujahideen, and the resistance was thus able to fight the vaunted Soviet army to a standoff and eventually force a political decision to withdraw," he said.

Mr Gates has been awarded many honours by the US government, including the National Security Medal, the Presidential Citizens Medal, and the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal.