White House fires back at Gates’ criticism
WASHINGTON — The White House is bristling over former Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ new memoir accusing President Obama of showing too little enthusiasm for the U.S. war mission in Afghanistan and sharply criticizing Vice President Joe Biden’s foreign policy instincts.
In a book set for release next week, Gates writes that Biden is “a man of integrity,” but also a political figure who has been “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Gates, a Republican, also slammed the National Security Council under Obama’s watch. He cited what he called the “controlling nature” of the White House, writing that Obama’s national security team “took micromanagement and operational meddling to a new level.”
White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday that Gates’ account of confrontations at the White House over Afghanistan policy “is hardly news.”
The National Security Council issued a statement late Tuesday asserting that Obama relies on Biden’s “good counsel” every day and considers him “one of the leading statesmen of his time.” Not only that, the White House allowed news organization representatives to photograph Obama and Biden sitting together Wednesday at their weekly private luncheon.
In his memoir, Gates asserted that Obama showed a growing frustration with U.S. policy in Afghanistan.
“I never doubted Obama’s support for the troops, only his support for their mission,” Gates writes.
Carney flatly disputed that, declaring Wednesday, “The president believes thoroughly in the mission.”
Recalling a meeting in the situation room in March 2011, Gates writes: “As I sat there, I thought: The president doesn’t trust his commander, can’t stand (Afghan President Hamid) Karzai, doesn’t believe in his own strategy and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.”
Carney said reports about the book have been based on selected excerpts that are particularly critical of the White House. He then chose his own excerpt from Gates’ account in which the former defense secretary notes that Obama was criticized by conservatives for announcing that the troop surge in Afghanistan would wind down in the summer of 2011 and that he faced “grumbling” from the military on the limits of the troop surge. Gates writes: “I believe Obama was right in each of these positions.”
Obama approved the strategy of putting 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan and placing Gen. David Petraeus in charge, even though some top advisers opposed the so-called surge he announced in December 2009.
Gates reveals he often found himself tempted to quit because of adversarial treatment he received from members of Congress. Gates served 4½ years as defense secretary, the last years of the George W. Bush administration and the first years of Obama’s.