Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates' new memoir draws bead on President Barack Obama's leadership, foreign policy and commitment to the war in Afghanistan, saying as early as 2010, the president had lost faith in his own strategy and "doesn't consider the war to be his."
The 594-page book, "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War", released Jan. 14, was by far the harshest critique of a sitting president by a former Cabinet member. In an excerpt from the book available to the media prior to publishing, Gates tells of a meeting at the White House in March 2011 in which Obama questioned whether or not General David Petraeus, who was then newly-appointed commander of all forces in Afghanistan, was up to the job and could work effectively with Afghan leader Hamid Karzai.
Gates said he left the meeting with several realizations: that the president didn't trust his commander, didn't like Karzai at all, didn't believe the current strategy in place was effective and just wanted to end the war and get U.S. troops out as soon as possible. Gates went on to describe the president's national security/foreign policy team as being skeptical and mistrustful of the military leaders and brought the term "micromanaging" of military decisions and operations to a whole new level.
Gates wrote that he had almost resigned in late 2009 because he felt that administration officials lacked the necessary understanding of the uncertainties and unpredictability of war. The memoir also described Gates' ongoing conflicts with several members of Obama's inner administration, most notably Vice President Joseph Biden, whom Gates says, "was wrong on nearly every foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades."
The National Security Council, through spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden, responded to Gates' memoir saying "the President welcomes differences of view among his national security team which broaden his options and enhance our policies." Hayden added that the President's trust in Biden is one that he relies on every day and wished Gates well as he recovered from vertebral injuries he sustained during a recent fall at his home in Washington state.
Gates' mostly emotional account in his memoir, however, pointed to widely divergent worldviews with the Obama administration that he described as personally wounding and may be impossible to repair.
Yet, in a surprising twist toward the end of his book, Gates praised Obama, saying that his decision to go ahead with the siege on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan was one the most courageous he's seen made at the the White House.
Gates' job at the top Pentagon post straddles two administrations, from the second term of former President George W. Bush to the first term of Obama's presidency.