President Barack Obama is receiving harsh criticism for his policies in Afghanistan and Iraq following revelations by former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates indicating the president did not have faith in the merit of the administration's strategy, despite his decision to order a "surge" in troops to the region.
Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer expressed his shock about the details that emerged in Gates' forthcoming book, "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War," specifically about how Gates realized three months after Obama announced the escalating troop levels that the president indicated he didn't believe it was the right way forward.
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"Think about this — you're the secretary of defense. The president is sending 30,000 more troops into battle, and three months later, the secretary of defense realizes that Obama doesn't believe in the surge or believe in the war or believe in his own actions," Krauthammer said, speaking on Fox News' "Special Report."
"He doesn't believe in [Gen. David] Petraeus. He hates Karzi. He thinks the war isn't his. How can a commander-in-chief in good conscience do that?"
He reflected that Obama, having announced both the surge and at the same time the withdrawal of troops, has never publicly explained why the surge was important.
"He now has the lowest public approval of any war in modern history because it has no leadership. But I think this is a shocking revelation. I assumed that he didn't believe in this war from his own actions. But here's from somebody sitting with the president three months in. And I do think this is an indictment of the president that rises above everything else he's done in his presidency," Krauthammer said.
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham also weighed in on the revelations from the book, saying Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are to blame for the recent resurgence of al-Qaida in Iraq.
"I blame Obama and Biden for not listening to their commanders, rejecting sound advice and Bob Gates talks about that in his book, how military commanders were overruled by the political people in the White House," Graham said on Fox News' "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren,"
according to Politico.
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