Former Secretaries of Defense Open Up a Can of Heat on Obama at National Security Forum

By Victoria Taft (7 hours ago) | Economy, Nation, World



Getty - MARK RALSTON

More than a few surprised looks were exchanged and a few audible gasps were heard at the Reagan National Security Forum when two former Secretaries of Defense, Leon Panetta and Robert Gates, took to task their former boss, President Obama, over how he’s handling the world’s crises–especially ISIS.
Panelists, who included Senator John McCain, former George W. Bush National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, Department of Homeland Security Chief Jeh Johnson, Panetta and Gates, were asked what were the biggest points of contention they’d had with the White House.
Gates’ responded he’d worked for many presidents during his career, but of all he’d served, ‘the biggest micro managing’ ones were Lyndon Johnson and Barack Obama.
Micromanagment that drove me crazy.
It’s not bad enough President Obama was criticized by John McCains several times for picking targets against ISIS from the White House (‘We’ve seen this Vietnam movie before’), but it was quite another thing to hear Gates liken the current President to LBJ, who notoriously tried to run the Vietnam War by picking bombing targets from the Oval Office to disastrous political result.
More surprising–and the gasp-inducing moment–was when Gates appeared to accuse Obama of using national defense as a domestic political tool when he said:
I think when a president wants highly centralized control at the White House, that’s not bureaucratic; that’s political.
He told of once hearing the Joint Special Operations Command was the subject of the White House micromanaging.
I told JSOC if they got a call from the White House you tell them to go to hell and call me.
Leon Panetta angrily denounced Obama for explicitly telling our enemies what we will and won’t do to defeat them, such as when he announced he wouldn’t put troops on the ground to fight ISIS.
Never tell your enemy what the hell you’re gonna do!
The statement got a round of applause. But Panetta wasn’t finished yet:
I’m willing to rely on our military leaders, General Dempsey [the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] to figure out what our goal be to defeat ISIS.
The former Democratic Congressman and aide to Bill Clinton also was enthusiastically applauded when he said the key to defeating our enemies is to ‘keep our eye on the ball':
We declared war on Al Qaeda and did a damn good job of undermining their leadership. Now it’s metastasized. We have a responsibility to go after those who would attack this country.
But Panetta, and all defense experts at the National Defense Forum, including Pentagon brass, agreed that political dysfunction– in the form of sequestration and budget cuts–have put US readiness in danger. Those warnings were echoed by General Joseph Dunford, Marine Commandant, and Admiral James Winnefeld, Jr., Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Panetta said the need couldn’t be anymore urgent:
We have sworn an oath to keep this country safe. We have to do everything we can to make sure evil does not prevail.
Well said.


http://www.ijreview.com/2014/11/2030...defense-forum/