veritable tidal wave of information being pushed out by the white house of a blow by blow account of what happened. then second you now have secretary gates himself very publicly turning back against the white house becoming the voice for the armed forces for the s.e.a.l.s basically saying, blame the press office in the white house. how do you interpret this? this raises a raft of questions. reporter: well, let s be clear. defense secretary robert gates is on his way out. he will be stepping down from office at the end of june. we are seeing him conduct his farewell tour, going around to these various bases. when you re about to leave office in washington, retire and go back home, you tend to get a little more candid. i think that s a good deal of what we re seeing here. but make no mistake, he s a man who is deeply concerned about the security of the troops and the fact that these s.e.a.l.s and the air force teams that he met with last week told him they are worried, i don t think t