The Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has written a book strongly criticising President Barack Obama's handling of the Afghan war.
In "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary of War", Robert Gates says that Obama was sceptical that his administration's Afghan strategy would succeed from 2009 through 2011. "I never doubted [his] support for the troops, only his support for their mission," he writes about Obama during the height of the U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan during 2010.
Gates was Pentagon chief under Presidents Obama and George Bush. He was the first Pentagon head to serve presidents of different parties before leaving political office in 2011.
Meanwhile, John McCain, a U.S. Republican Senator, has also said that the Obama administration failed in its support of both Iraq and Afghanistan, allowing al-Qaida's terrorist network to flourish once again.
"The United States made a half-hearted attempt to keep troops [in Iraq], which was doomed to failure," McCain told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV this week.
Although Gates describes Obama as "a man of personal integrity" who was right in his decisions regarding Afghanistan, he says that the president was uncomfortable with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which he inherited from the Bush administration.
He describes a White House meeting in March 2011 where the U.S. President expressed doubts about Gen. David H. Petraeus, the man he had chosen to lead the Afghan war effort, as well as Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
"As I sat there, I thought: The president doesn't trust his commander, can't stand Karzai, doesn't believe in his own strategy and doesn't consider the war to be his," Gates writes. "For him, it's all about getting out."
The U.S.-led NATO coalition is set to leave Afghanistan in December. The U.S. now finds itself trying desperately to seal a deal with Kabul to ensure some troops remain behind to continue to support Afghan forces and ensure American interests in the country are not abandoned in the same way they were in Iraq in 2011.
Whether the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) will be signed, however, remains uncertain. Though it would seem the Karzai has more reservations about keeping the U.S. around than Obama and his advisors have about stationing troops in Afghanistan after the combat mission ends this year.
In the book, the former defence secretary voices frustration at the "controlling nature" of Obama's White House, which he says constantly interfered in Pentagon affairs, even though civilian aides lacked knowledge of military operations.
Gates at times criticises 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.
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."
