Obama Lost Faith in His Afghan Strategy, Memoir Asserts.

[elleng]

President Obama eventually lost faith in the troop increase he ordered in Afghanistan, his doubts fed by top White House civilian advisers opposed to the strategy, who continually brought him negative news reports suggesting it was failing, according to his former defense secretary, Robert M. Gates. . .

“As I sat there, I thought: The president doesn’t trust his commander, can’t stand Karzai, doesn’t believe in his own strategy and doesn’t consider the war to be his,” Mr. Gates writes. “For him, it’s all about getting out.”

“Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War” is the first book describing those years written from inside the cabinet. Mr. Gates offers more than 600 pages of detailed history of his personal wars with Congress, the Pentagon bureaucracy and, in particular, Mr. Obama’s White House staff over the four and a half years he sought to salvage victory in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The “controlling nature” of the Obama White House and the national security staff “took micromanagement and operational meddling to a new level,” Mr. Gates writes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/08/world/asia/obama-lost-faith-in-his-afghan-strategy-memoir-asserts.html?hp

[KoKo]

1. Seems an oddly incomplete review by the NYT, though.

Seems to just focus on a few revelations without much depth.

Hopefully there will be more detailed reviews coming.

[elleng]

5. Woodward did one in WaPo,

but I'm not keen on it, dumping on Pres. Obama.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/robert-gates-former-defense-secretary-offers-harsh-critique-of-obamas-leadership-in-duty/2014/01/07/6a6915b2-77cb-11e3-b1c5-739e63e9c9a7_story.html?hpid=z1

[KoKo]

7. Thanks...just now had time to read Woodwards piece..

It's much more detailed...but, makes Gates seem even more like a guy doing a "Pity Party" on himself. Granted...it's Woodward...and he has his own loyalties...so everything is with a grain of salt with him...but his descriptions of Gates seems to be that Gates hated his job and was all over himself in disagreement (privately) with everyone. Look at these snips and see WHO Gates Joined after leaving...it's an eyeopener as to why his book is probably very distorted... He needs more money...!

These quotes stood out from my read:

“Duty” is likely to provide ammunition for those who believe it is risky for a president to fill such a key Cabinet post with a holdover from the opposition party.

----------------

He writes, “I have tried to be fair in describing actions and motivations of others.” He seems well aware that Obama and his aides will not see it that way.

--------------------

Gates offers a catalogue of various meetings, based in part on notes that he and his aides made at the time, including an exchange between Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that he calls “remarkable.”

He writes: “Hillary told the president that her opposition to the [2007] surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary. .?.?. The president conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political. To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying.”

Earlier in the book, he describes Hillary Clinton in the sort of glowing terms that might be used in a political endorsement. “I found her smart, idealistic but pragmatic, tough-minded, indefatigable, funny, a very valuable colleague, and a superb representative of the United States all over the world,” he wrote.

---------------

Gates acknowledges forthrightly in “Duty” that he did not reveal his dismay. “I never confronted Obama directly over what I (as well as [Hillary] Clinton, [then-CIA Director Leon] Panetta, and others) saw as the president’s determination that the White House tightly control every aspect of national security policy and even operations. His White House was by far the most centralized and controlling in national security of any I had seen since Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger ruled the roost.”

Gates wanted to quit at the end of 2010 but agreed to stay at Obama’s urging, finally leaving in mid-2011. He later joined a consulting firm with two of Bush’s closest foreign policy advisers — former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser during Bush’s second term. The firm is called RiceHadleyGates. In October, he became president-elect of the Boy Scouts of America.

--------------------------
Gates writes, “I did not enjoy being secretary of defense,” or as he e-mailed one friend while still serving, “People have no idea how much I detest this job.”

[truebluegreen]

2. So it's the media's fault with those negative reports...

that and civilian meddling. Where have we heard that before, Mr. Gates?

And btw, Mr. President: if it is all about getting out, let's get out.

[TwilightGardener]

3. Petraeus had a shadow-command of neocons (Kagans) set up with him in Kabul.

He was too busy diddling his girlfriend to run things himself. McChrystal blathered to Rolling Stone, and undermined Obama's decision-making. Neither man proved to be trustworthy, so Gates's whining that Obama and his staff didn't trust them enough is pure silly.

[frazzled]

4. His strategy was always to get out of there

I know Gates, Petraeus, and the rest of the MIC would love a perpetual war, but Obama was smart enough to know that no ultimate goal was achievable. He gave one last push, and set about extracting us. He's known exactly what he wanted all along.

[indepat]

6. My Dear Mr. President: The Afghan strategy failed because it was a right-wing initiative and

right-wing initiatives, policies, et al almost always fail because right-wing initiatives are, almost without exception, either wrong-headed, belligerent, cruel, wasteful. self-serving inequitable, illegal, inhumane, corrupt, avaricious, or some combination thereof. Your devoted servant

[bemildred]

8. So it was a "faith-based" strategy all along. nt