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GATES THROWS THE BOOK AT O
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Slams Biden, Reveals He Nearly Quit...
Says Obama, Hillary Opposition to Iraq Surge Was 'Political'...
WASHPOST: Memoir Could Haunt in 2016...
The Quiet Fury...
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Robert Gates unloads on Obama
By Associated Press January 8, 2014 6:55 am
http://www.gopusa.com/news/files/201...es-300x180.jpg WASHINGTON - Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates asserts in a new memoir that President Barack Obama grew frustrated with U.S. policy in Afghanistan and that Vice President Joe Biden has been wrong on nearly every foreign policy and national security issue. He also accuses members of Congress of inquisition-like treatment of administration officials.
"I never doubted Obama's support for the troops, only his support for their mission," Gates writes in the book, "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War," which was set for release next week by Knopf.
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.
In 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."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...;v=rEoRwHvDhuM
A Republican, Gates served 4 1/2 years as defense secretary, the last years of the George W. Bush administration and the first years of Obama's. According to published reports about the book Tuesday in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal:
-Gates calls Biden "wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades," though he also says Biden is "a man of integrity" - and applies the same assessment to Obama even though he is critical at times of the president's own leadership. The White House National Security Council issued a statement Tuesday asserting that Obama relies on Biden's "good counsel" every day and considers him "one of the leading statesmen of his time."
-During his tenure as Pentagon chief, Gates often found himself tempted to quit because of the adversarial treatment he received from members of Congress. He says that in private the lawmakers could be reasonable. "But when they went into an open hearing, and the little red light went on atop a television camera, it had the effect of a full moon on a werewolf," he says in an excerpt in the Journal.
-Gates recalls Obama and his secretary of state at the time, Hillary Rodham Clinton, discussing their opposition to Bush's 2007 surge of troops in Iraq, according to the Post. "Hillary told the president that her opposition to the 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."
-Criticizing what he calls the "controlling nature" of the Obama White House, Gates says the president's national security team "took micromanagement and operational meddling to a new level," the Times reports. He is most critical of the growth and size of the National Security Council staff, according to the Times.
-Gates at times criticizes the Bush administration as well as its successor. He holds the Bush administration responsible for what he considered misguided policy that squandered the early victories in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to the Times.
-In praise of Obama, Gates calls the president's decision to order Navy SEALs to raid a house in Pakistan believed to be the hiding place of Osama bin Laden "one of the most courageous decisions I had ever witnessed in the White House."
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Pat Buchanan and Juan Williams join Sean to evaluate former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' claims about the Obama administration. What do you think about Gates' new revelations? Comment below and remember to follow along with our show at http://hannitylive.foxnews.com/
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January 9, 2014 By Jim Kouri
Robert Gates memoir: Pakistan’s top security adviser agrees with Gates
On the same day that former Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ soon-to-be-released memoir created a Washington, D.C., media feeding frenzy regarding his criticism of — and revelations about — President Barack Obama’s handling of the Afghan conflict, Pakistan’s top foreign affairs official said on Wednesday that the U.S. has failed to achieve its stated goals of peace, defeating terrorism, promoting development and political stability in post-Osama bin Laden Afghanistan.
Gates’ upcoming book criticizes President Obama, his national security team, and his lack of interest in the military strategy employed in Afghanistan. While, according to press reports in the Middle East, Pakistan’s Sartaj Aziz, that country’s senior adviser for national security and foreign relations, said that the United States was fighting a wrong war, with wrong methods and with wrong people.
“The United States was now fighting those which were trained, armed and funded by it during Russian invasion of Afghanistan,” Aziz said.
Aziz complained that Obama’s increased use of drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal regions proved his total ignorance of Pakistani values and traditions. He said he believed Obama’s actions and his inactions were counterproductive.
Pakistan has forcefully raised the drone issue with the United States, Aziz claims. “The international community is now supportive of the Pakistani position and the government would raise the issue more emphatically in the weeks to come.”
Meanwhile, also on Wednesday, the chairman of theHouse Homeland Security Committee announced that on Jan. 15, 2014, he and his committee will begin probing what he termed, “Obama’s failure to reflect the reality that is al-Qaeda.
Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, a former federal prosecutor, said in apress release:“The President’s narrative fails to reflect the reality that al-Qaeda is not on the run, but is in fact growing in strength at an alarming rate across the Middle East and Northern Africa. As of last week, major fighting in both Ramadi and Fallujah saw al Qaeda-linked groups gain territory in cities where U.S. soldiers recently suppressed violent insurgents. The civil war in Syria is attracting jihadists and the fighting is spilling over into neighboring countries while extremism engulfs entire regions in Libya and Somalia.Tell Congress: Create a Joint Select Committee to INVESTIGATE the 9/11/12 Benghazi Attacks! Sign the petition.
“We must take an honest look at the danger to the homeland from the spread of extremism. Continuing to downplay the terrorist threat endangers our ability to defeat it, and this hearing will examine the consequences of the Administration’s counterterrorism rhetoric.”
Tagged as: afghanistan, obama, Robert Gates, terrorism
http://www.conservativeactionalerts....ri-100x100.jpg About Jim Kouri
Jim Kouri, CPP, is founder and CEO of Kouri Associates, a homeland security, public safety and political consulting firm. He’s formerly Fifth Vice-President, now a Board Member, of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, an editor for Conservative Base, and a columnist for the Examiner.
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Gates: Book ‘Hijacked’ By People With Political Agendas
January 13, 2014 by UPI - United Press International, Inc.
NEW YORK (UPI) — Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday he was disappointed by the reaction to his memoir, saying it had been “hijacked” for political purposes.
Gates made the comment bout his book Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary of War during an interview on NBC’s “Today” show.
“The book has sort of been hijacked by people along the political spectrum to serve their own purposes, taking quotes out of context,” he said. “It’s sort of the political warfare in Washington that I decry in the book.”
He also defended the book as even-handed.
“I don’t vilify anybody and I make clear that I have a lot of respect for both President [George W.] Bush and President [Barack] Obama,” Gates said.
Gates, who served in both Presidents’ Administrations, has been criticized for statements in the book that Obama had reservations about the war in Iraq.
He said during the interview he “absolutely believed” Obama supported the surge of U.S. troops in Iraq, although in private conversations “he would express these reservations about whether it was working. But the decisions were right, and I believe that he believed it would work.”
Gates said he never claimed in the book that Obama opposed the surge only for political reasons.
“What I say in the book was that the president conceded that a lot of opposition to the surge had been political,” said Gates. “He never said that his opposition was political. In fact, his opposition was consistent with his opposition to the war all along.”
http://personalliberty.com/2014/01/1...tical-agendas/