"Okay," Obama said, "if you tell me that we can't do that, and you war-gamed it, I'll accept that," according to Woodward's book.
Obama turned to Gates at one point with the complaint: "You have essentially given me one option," he said."It's unacceptable."
Gates replied, "Well, Mr. President, I think we owe you" another option. But Woodward wrote, "It never came."
According to Woodward's book, "At critical points in the review, the ghosts of Vietnam hovered. Some participants openly worried that they were on the verge of replaying that history, allowing the military to dictate the force levels.
"While Obama sought to build an exit plan into the strategy, the military leadership stuck to its open-ended proposal, which the Office of Management and Budget estimated would cost $889 billion over a decade. Obama brought the OMB memo to one meeting and said the expense was "not in the national interest.'"
Faced with this resistance from the Bush holdovers and unaware that their war game may have been fixed Obama finally devised his own option that gave Gates, Petraeus and Mullen most of what they wanted 30,000 additional troops on top of the 21,000 that Obama had dispatched shortly after taking office.
Obama did try to bind the Pentagon to a more limited commitment to Afghanistan, including setting a date of July 2011 for the beginning of a U.S. drawdown. Though Obama required all the key participants to sign off on his compromise, it soon became clear that the Bush holdovers had no intention to comply.
"Wiggle Room'
Even after Obama consented to the 30,000 additional troops, Woodward reported that the Pentagon continued to push for 4,500 more, called "enablers" who would handle logistics, communications and other non-combat functions.
Woodward cited a "clearly annoyed" Obama responding "I'm done doing this!"
According to Woodward's book, Obama insisted that the 30,000 was a "hard cap" and that there would be no further "wiggle room."
Obama added, "It'd be a lot easier for me to go out and give a speech saying, 'You know what? The American people are sick of this war, and we're going to put in 10,000 trainers because that's how we're going to get out of there,' " Woodward reported.
However, when Obama's deputy national security adviser Thomas Donilon noted that Gates might resign if Obama pressed for the 10,000 trainer option, Obama backed off, saying "that would be the difficult part."
Obama later explained to Gates that the 30,000 was the most that "I'm willing to take on, politically," according to Woodward. Gates continued to press for the "enablers."
"I've got a request for 4,500 enablers sitting on my desk," Gates said. "And I'd like to have another 10 percent that I can send in, enablers or forces, if I need them."
"Bob," Obama responded, "30,000 plus 4,500 plus 10 percent of 30,000 is " 37,500. " I'm at 30,000." Obama offered Gates "some latitude within your 10 percentage points" but only under exceptional circumstances.
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