While drawing this slightly squiggly line in the sand, Obama made clear to Gates that the only other option would be to go with the 10,000 trainers.
"Can you support this?" Obama asked about the 30,000-troop figure. "Because if the answer is no, I understand it and I'll be happy to just authorize another 10,000 troops, and we can continue to go as we are and train the Afghan national force and just hope for the best."
Before Obama's decision to dispatch the 30,000 troops, the Bush holdovers also sought to hem in the President's choices by working with allies in the Washington news media and in think tanks.
As we've reported at Consortiumnews.com, Petraeus, Mullen and McChrystal were essentially campaigning for their desired escalation through interviews, speeches, and propaganda visits to the war zone by influential neoconservatives.
For instance, early in 2009, Petraeus personally arranged for Max Boot, Frederick Kagan and Kimberly Kagan to get extraordinary access during a trip to Afghanistan.
"Fears of impending disaster are hard to sustain, however, if you actually spend some time in Afghanistan, as we did recently at the invitation of General David Petraeus, chief of U.S. Central Command," they wrote upon their return.
"Using helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, and bone-jarring armored vehicles, we spent eight days traveling from the snow-capped peaks of Kunar province near the border with Pakistan in the east to the wind-blown deserts of Farah province in the west near the border with Iran. Along the way we talked with countless coalition soldiers, ranging from privates to a four-star general," the trio said.
Their access paid dividends for Petraeus when they penned a glowing report in the Weekly Standard about the prospects for success in Afghanistan if only President Obama sent more troops and committed the United States to stay in the war for the long haul.
Making a Call
Woodward's book adds that "in September 2009, Petraeus called a Washington Post columnist to say that the war would be unsuccessful if the president held back on troops. Later that month, Mullen repeated much the same sentiment in Senate testimony, and in October, McChrystal asserted in a speech in London that a scaled-back effort against Afghan terrorists would not work."
This back-door campaign infuriated Obama's aides, including White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Woodward reported.
"Filling his rant with expletives, Emanuel said, "Between the chairman [Mullen] and Petraeus, everyone's come out and publicly endorsed the notion of more troops. The president hasn't even had a chance!'" Woodward reported.
However, the incoming Obama administration was warned of this possibility of backstabbing by Gates and other Bush appointees when it was lining up personnel for national security jobs. Instead, Obama's team listened to Establishment Democrats like former Rep. Lee Hamilton and former Sen. David Boren, who were big fans of Gates.
As I wrote in November 2008, "if Obama does keep Gates on, the new President will be employing someone who embodies many of the worst elements of U.S. national security policy over the past three decades, including responsibility for what Obama himself has fingered as a chief concern, "politicized intelligence.' "
"It was Gates as a senior CIA official in the 1980s who broke the back of the CIA analytical division's commitment to objective intelligence."
More than any CIA official, Gates was responsible for the agency's failure to detect the collapse of the Soviet Union, in large part because Gates had ridden roughshod over the CIA analysts on behalf of the Reagan administration's desire to justify a massive military buildup by stressing Soviet ascendance and ignoring evidence of its disintegration.
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