This was an interesting interview. Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense, talks about his frustrations with Obama and how he handled Afghanistan, particularly how his White House staff tried to undermine him by going directly to field commanders to second guess his decisions.
But he also says that Obama had his reservations about the war in Afghanistan because, while he may have believed in the troops, he didn’t believe in the mission and he didn’t communicate that to the troops, which Gates says is something vital a president must do.
He also weighs in on Russia and Obama’s train and equip program, something he calls NUTS!
Watch below:
NEWSMAX – A doomed US plan now on hold to train Syrian rebel fighters outside the country to fight the Islamic State was “nuts,” former defense secretary Robert Gates said.
President Barack Obama’s administration has suspended its $500 million train and equip effort in the latest embarrassment concerning a Syria strategy that has stumbled from one setback to the next.
Pentagon officials say that instead of training rebel units, the US military would dole out weapons to favored commanders already on the ground.
“I think the idea of training somebody from the outside and sending them in is nuts, it’s just not going to work,” Gates said in an interview with the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report” aired Thursday.
“The only way you can staunch the humanitarian flow, the humanitarian disaster, is through some kind of a safe haven and I think that that’s achievable.”
Gates, a former CIA director who served as Pentagon chief under both Obama and his Republican predecessor George W. Bush, argued that the US role in the drawn-out Syrian war “should be limited.”
“I would not put ground troops in Syria,” where a brutal civil war has raged since 2011.
Last month CENTCOM commander General Lloyd Austin admitted that after the debacle only “four or five” Pentagon-trained rebels remain active in Syria.
Gates also said Obama distrusted the military, which was “particularly true in Afghanistan.”
“I think there were people in the White House, and I don’t want to name any names, who were constantly goading him,” Gates said.
When asked if Vice President Joe Biden was one of these people, Gates said, “I think so. And I was told so…”
He said those people were saying “the military is trying to box you in. The military is trying to trap you. The military is trying to bully you. The military is trying to make you do something you don’t want to do.”