President Obama’s leadership style is savaged in the 594-page memoir of Former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, a man who has served every president going back to Richard Nixon, except Bill Clinton.
In “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War,” Mr. Gates writes that Mr. Obama “doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war [in Afghanistan] to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.”
Mr. Obama was “skeptical if not outright convinced it would fail” in regards to his own strategy for Afghanistan and was “distrustful of the military that is providing him options,” Mr. Gates wrote in the book, according to The Washington Post.
Vice President Joseph R. Biden doesn’t fare any better, as Mr. Gates holds him responsible for “poisoning the well” against military leadership, The Post reported. Two of the president’s former national security advisers are also accused of “aggressive, suspicious, and sometimes condescending and insulting questioning of our military leaders.”
“All too early in the administration, suspicion and distrust of senior military officers by senior White House officials — including the president and vice president — became a big problem for me as I tried to manage the relationship between the commander in chief and his military leaders,” Mr. Gates wrote.
The book is scheduled to be released Jan. 14.
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• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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