| | Gates meets with Obama defense transition team
 US Defense Secretary Robert Gates met Thursday with President-elect Barack Obama's defense team, opening a more substantive phase of the political transition at the Defense Department.
Gates's office sent out guidelines late Wednesday to Pentagon staff outlining the rules for interacting with a transition team that now numbers 16 persons, including several former senior Clinton administration people.
"This is kind of the next step to get us started," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.
Gates himself was meeting in the morning with the leaders of the Obama transition team, John White and Michele Flournoy, he said.
They had previously paid Gates a courtesy call, but Thursday's meeting was expected to last about an hour.
Meanwhile, other members of the Obama team were expected to move out into various parts of the Defense Department to review policies, operations and procedures, he said.
For the moment, the team members will not have access to classified information on many of the most critical subjects involving the Pentagon.
According to the guidelines, these include current military operations; special access programs; pre-decisional budget information; contingency operations and plans; personnel records; privileged or legally protected information; sensitive acquisition information; and active National Security Council policy deliberations.
Transition team members who already have security clearances will have access to other classified information.
Whitman said further guidelines expanding the level of access will be issued as the transition progresses.
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