President Bush informed the nation this afternoon in a televised press conference that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is stepping down. Bush intends to nominate former CIA director Robert Gates to replace Rumsfeld. Gates currently is serving as president of Texas A&M University. Despite saying just a week ago that Rumsfeld would remain in his post, Bush today said the decision “after a series of thoughtful conversations” and was not the result of Democratic success in the mid-term elections. The President said he and Rumsfeld agreed the “time is right.”
The cost of the nuclear AGM-181 Long-Range Stand Off missile has come down slightly and the program is on track, but several technologies it relies on are still considered immature, the Government Accountability Office found in a report. Meanwhile, the GAO also assessed the LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile as…