Former U.S. defense secretary, Robert Gates has come up with an insider's tale about Obama's administration in his yet-to-be-released book, 'Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War.'
According to Gates, who served two years under the Obama government, the President lost faith in the war strategy in Afghanistan by 2011 and how it panned out after he ordered an increase in the number of troops in Afghanistan in 2009.
A report published in The New York Times citing the book states that during a March 2011 meet to discuss the withdrawal timetable, Obama expressed doubts about Gen. David H. Petraeus, his choice and even questioned doing business with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai.
"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," Gates wrote. "For him, it's all about getting out." He, however, said that he never doubted Obama's support for the troops, but was skeptical of his support for their mission, reports Reuters.
Gates described the White House staff surrounding Obama as the "most centralized and controlling" since Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.
During the Afghan policy discussion in September 2009, Gates wrote, he was "deeply uneasy" with no appreciation of the uncertainties and unpredictability of the war from the Obama administration. "I came closer to resigning that day than at any other time in my tenure, though no one knew it," Gates stated, according to the Times. He had also expressed his wish to resign from the post by 2010 end but was persuaded to stay. He stepped down finally in 2011.
Gates is the only Pentagon chief to serve two different parties, Democrats and Republican, from 2006 to 2011. After Obama was elected as the President in 2008, Gates was requested to continue as the defense secretary.
The 70-year-old former defense boss also had some harsh words for Biden. Gates blamed the Vice President of "poisoning the well" against the U.S. military leadership, reported Reuters. "I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades," Gates wrote. But he also described Biden as a "man of integrity."
"Why was I so often angry? Why did I so dislike being back in government and in Washington?" Gates asks in his memoir. "I did not enjoy being secretary of defense," Gates confessed in the book, reports the Washington Post. "People have no idea how much I detest this job."
Gates writes that the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton too was "offended" with the 'inner circle' surrounding Obama. The impression was that there was a lot of micro-management and meddling.
"The controlling nature of the Obama White House, and its determination to take credit for every good thing that happened while giving none to the career folks in the trenches who had actually done the work, offended Secretary Clinton as much as it did me," reveals Wall Street Journal carrying an excerpt of the book.
Following Gates' comments on the Obama administration, the White House National Security Council issued a statement saying the President "deeply appreciates" the services given by Gates as defense secretary, reported Reuters.
The NSC spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said that Obama "welcomes differences of view among his national security team, which broaden his options and enhance our policies."
Responding to Gates' Afghanistan war policy, the NSC said, "Deliberations over our policy on Afghanistan have been widely reported on over the years, and it is well known that the president has been committed to achieving the mission of disrupting, dismantling and defeating al Qaeda, while also ensuring that we have a clear plan for winding down the war, which will end this year."
The White House also supported Biden stating that he has been "one of the leading statesmen of his time." "The president disagrees with Secretary Gates' assessment - from his leadership on the Balkans in the Senate, to his efforts to end the war in Iraq, Joe Biden has been one of the leading statesmen of his time, and has helped advance America's leadership in the world," Hayden said, according to the Politico.
Gates memoir 'Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War' will hit the bookshelves on January 14.
