Hillary Clinton and Obama admitted they opposed Iraq troop surge only to look good po

Hillary Rodham Clinton, a likely Democratic Party standard-bearer in the 2016 presidential contest, staked out her military-related positions in the 2008 race based on how they would play politically, according to a former secretary of defense who served in both the Obama and Bush administrations.

Describing a 'remarkable' exchange he witnessed, Robert Gates writes in a book due out next week that 'Hillary told the president that her opposition to the [2007] surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary.'

Obama, too, 'conceded vaguely that [his] opposition to the Iraq surge had been political,' Gates recounts. 'To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying.'

And Gates recounts how, as the president lost faith in Gen. David Petraeus's handling of hostilities in Afghanistan, he – Gates – lost faith in Obama's commitment to accomplishing much of anything...

...Gates has harsh words for the sitting vice president as well.

Joe Biden, he writes, 'has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.'

And he described in a Wall Street Journal essay adapted from his book that he resented the Obama White House's National Security Staff (NSS) for its habit of interfering in military affairs.

'Most of my conflicts with the Obama administration during the first two years weren't over policy initiatives from the White House,' Gates declares, 'but rather the NSS's micromanagement and operational meddling, which I routinely resisted.'

'For an NSS staff member to call a four-star combatant commander or field commander would have been unthinkable when I worked at the White House – and probably cause for dismissal. It became routine under Obama. I directed commanders to refer such calls to my office.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...gn-based-election-politics.html#ixzz2pl8ZEu1n
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