Clinton: Gates a 'Very Good Colleague'

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton says former Defense Secretary Robert Gates was a “very good colleague” and says her main takeaway from his new book is his admiration for both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Clinton was asked about Gates’ book during a speech to auto dealers. She did not address a passage in the book in which Gates says he heard Clinton say her opposition to a 2007 troop surge in Iraq was dictated by campaign politics.

Clinton says Gates respected the way both presidents “stepped up and made decisions whether you agreed with them or not.”

She says her biggest regret as secretary of state was the killing of four Americans in the 2012 attacks on a diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. She calls it “a terrible tragedy.”