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In Obama's Wars, Bob Woodward provides the most intimate and sweeping portrait yet of the young president as commander in chief. Drawing on internal memos, classified documents, meeting notes and hundreds of hours of interviews with most of the key players, including the president, Woodward tells the inside story of Obama making the critical decisions on the Afghanistan War, the secret campaign in Pakistan and the worldwide fight against terrorism.
At the core of Obama's Wars is the unsettled division between the civilian leadership in the White House and the United States military as the president is thwarted in his efforts to craft an exit plan for the Afghanistan War.
"So what's my option?" the president asked his war cabinet, seeking alternatives to the Afghanistan commander's request for 40,000 more troops in late 2009. "You have essentially given me one option.... It's unacceptable."
"Well," Secretary of Defense Robert Gates finally said, "Mr. President, I think we owe you that option."
It never came. An untamed Vice President Joe Biden pushes relentlessly to limit the military mission and avoid another Vietnam. The vice president frantically sent half a dozen handwritten memos by secure fax to Obama on the eve of the final troop decision.
President Obama's ordering a surge of 30,000 troops and pledging to start withdrawing U.S. forces by July 2011 did not end the skirmishing.
General David Petraeus, the new Afghanistan commander, thinks time can be added to the clock if he shows progress. "I don't think you win this war," Petraeus said privately. "This is the kind of fight we're in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids' lives."
Hovering over this debate is the possibility of another terrorist attack in the United States. The White House led a secret exercise showing how unprepared the government is if terrorists set off a nuclear bomb in an American city--which Obama told Woodward is at the top of the list of what he worries about all the time.
Verbatim quotes from secret debates and White House strategy sessions--and firsthand accounts of the thoughts and concerns of the president, his war council and his generals--reveal a government in conflict, often consumed with nasty infighting and fundamental disputes.
Woodward has discovered how the Obama White House really works, showing that even more tough decisions lie ahead for the cerebral and engaged president.
Obama's Wars offers the reader a stunning, you-are-there account of the president, his White House aides, military leaders, diplomats and intelligence chiefs in this time of turmoil and danger.
From the Washington PostBy Steve Luxenberg, September 22, 2010:
President Obama urgently looked for a way out of the war in Afghanistan last year, repeatedly pressing his top military advisers for an exit plan that they never gave him, according to secret meeting notes and documents cited in a new book by journalist Bob Woodward.
Frustrated with his military commanders for consistently offering only options that required significantly more troops, Obama finally crafted his own strategy, dictating a classified six-page "terms sheet" that sought to limit U.S. involvement, Woodward reports in Obama's Wars.
According to Woodward's meeting-by-meeting, memo-by-memo account of the 2009 Afghan strategy review, the president avoided talk of victory as he described his objectives.
"This needs to be a plan about how we're going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan," Obama is quoted as telling White House aides as he laid out his reasons for adding 30,000 troops in a short-term escalation. "Everything we're doing has to be focused on how we're going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint. It's in our national security interest. There cannot be any wiggle room."
Read the full Post news report on Obama's Wars.
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Customer Reviews
2010-09-30
By Sylvia Hawley (Springfield, OR USA)
It's five stars because we all need to know what's in it even though what's in it isn't everything there is. For example, early on there's a comment that if we don't stay in Afghanistan, India will come in. They are motivated by enmity and fear with Pakistan. Apparently, though the book doesn't say so, we don't want India taking our place there because Pakistan might get mad and start a war and both India and Pakistan are armed with nuclear weapons. The book doesn't say that. I wondered, well, why not let India take our place in Afghanistan? Haven't we done our part?
Woodward's always great from within the limits of good journalism, good research, excellent writing and access better than anyone else has got. What's missing for me is a perspective outside the conditions we've inherited from 9/11, that is, our warmaking again in somebody else's country. Those questions aren't in the scope of the book.
While reading, I ask myself, why do all these people want us to know all this right now? It must be because this battle between extreme jihadists and western civilization is going to be a permanent part of our lives, our children's lives and our landscape. This isn't going away and, the book would have us know, Pakistan's corruption and divided loyalty is the problem. Pakistan is where all the bad stuff is coming from. Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan. We can't invade them because they've got nukes. They can read English too.
Just as the book emerges, European landmarks under seige. Woodward quotes Obama, "We can absorb a terrorist attack on our soil."
I have to think the logic and meaning of this book is for us to adjust our expectations. Obama can't be the peacemaker we all wanted him to be. Obama's administration has to have a dark and secret side. Here are some of the secrets we can know. While reading, you can watch the line move between the secrets we can now know and the ones we cannot yet know.
The book is supposed to help us all adjust our expectations. It doesn't matter who is president. This is a military necessity forever. I don't like that. Eisenhower supposedly wanted to include the media in his military-industrial complex warning. Got talked out of it? Certainly now we know it's military-intelligence-industrial-media complex.
Where can civilization go from here? This is why Obama got grey.
2010-09-30
By Susan N. Beran (Mountain Home,AR)
Amazon's Kindle strategy has been so clever to date that I hesitate to question their recent changes. The simplicity of the unit itself, the availability of so much media- from a company fully versed in the book business, instant satisfaction with the Whispernet delivery system... a really well thought out package for a brand new product. But it's not a new product category anymore. I find it hard to see the cleverness of hiking up the price of Kindle books when there are so many new competitors for the Kindle system. It seems backwards.
A company that pretty much owns the market place challenges a bunch of new competitors by raising prices in financially tough times? This approach seems especially egregious when the implication of Amazon's advertising has been, from the beginning, that most best seller's would be priced at $10 or so. Does Amazon not care about their established customer base?
I know the Kindle's a very successful product but technology does change so fast... and we Americans are more than ready to follow the new and the trendy. Why offer the competition an easy point of attack? Go figure.
Personaly, I just ordered the new Bob Woodward book... in hard cover. I think it will be worth keeping on my own book shelves.
2010-09-30
By Henok Negash (San Diego, CA)
woodward has done an excellent job of clearly defining the complexities of the afghan war. this book showed that the military brass should take as much if not more blame than obama. woodward poimts out that after 6 years of war no uniform goals had been established and no one was on the same page. it was like pulling teeth for the president to get options from his military leaders. its ironic that this war was begun with little/no planning and when obama comes in and has the military/pentagon take the time for a review, he is blasted by the public for not being decisive. its a strange dichotomy because when a war is succesful the military gets the credit but when unsuccesful the president gets the blame. cant wait for woodwards next book.
2010-09-30
By Richard Stoyeck (Westport, CT)
In the author's personal note to this book, Bob Woodward thanks his assistant Josh Bock with words of such kindness that I was completely taken aback by the grace that this man possesses. Many writers wouldn't take the time, or interest to be so encouraging to someone else.
Woodward's writing has the poet's touch. It is elegant, straightforward, and of such compelling interest that this book like many others he has written, is a page turner. You start it, and you just keep going until you are finished.
First we must discuss his sources and methods. This author doesn't publish unless he has confirmation of what he is being told by an additional 3rd party. His interviews are recorded, transcribed and then checked for errors. He sometimes revisits the same interviewee 4 or 5 times. He works with notes, documents and recollections.
Although a person being interviewed may request that it be background only, once Woodward gets the same story from another independent source, the story is no longer background. Many people have talked to Woodward on the basis of background in an effort to remain anonymous, and control him. It just doesn't remain that way. You are not going to fool this man.
When you read Obama's Wars, you realize that you can't obtain this much great information if you read a year's worth of the New York Times. You are getting the real deal here, and you don't get it anywhere else. Let me illustrate:
* When meeting President Bush's intelligence officer and hearing what he had to say prior to the election, then Senator Obama responds that he was worried about losing this election, now he's worried about winning the election with the information he is being told.
* Woodward confirms for us that Pakistani intelligence, the so called ISI has been giving aide to the Taliban, while taking $2 billion a year in cash from us.
* During the first half of 2008, the US made only 4 Predator strikes in Pakistan. Pakistan made the US warn the ISI ahead of time before a strike could be made. The ISI in turn would warn the Taliban and the bad guys would head for the hills prior to the strike. Once American got wise to the setup, we only gave the ISI simultaneous warning, and frankly we waited until the Predator was ready to fire its missiles before giving that warning. Where are you going to get information like this? I don't see it in the Washington Post, and certainly not the NY Times.
* President Obama was informed that 35 countries do not require Visas prior to coming to the United States. Terrorists are now coming to the US through those countries and forming cells. Our worst nightmare may be yet to come.
* Iran will have a gun-type nuclear weapon between 2013 and 2015 which will be demonstrated in the desert. Saudi Arabia will immediately notify Pakistan that you help us develop a nuclear weapon, or we cut off oil supplies to your country.
* Then Senator Obama was the victim of a cyber attack on his campaign by the Chinese government that copied his documents and files. The greater danger was what would happen if they destroyed the files as opposed to just copying them. The same thing happened to Senator McCain and his campaign.
* But Wait - there's more. Senator Obama was then told that every day both the Bank of NY and Citibank handle $3 trillion a day in funds transfers, whereas the entire economy is equal to $14 trillion in gross domestic product. Other countries now have the capability to interfere with those transactions through cyber war. The resulting financial chaos would be exponentially worse than the World Trade Center destruction. We do not have a cyber defense yet.
Woodward is at his best when discussing personalities. His discussion of Hillary Clinton's reluctance, then refusal and finally acceptance of the Cabinet position of Secretary of State is absolutely fascinating. Senator Clinton did not want the position, but Senator Obama's people sensed the door was still opened, so they told her to sleep on it over night. During the night Senator Clinton consulted Mark Penn, the Clinton pollster who basically asked her if she was crazy. Take it, "you will have an unmatched record of public service." He also reminded her that you are weak on foreign policy and national security, and now you will have absolute bonafides in both, and it didn't hurt that you she will finally show independence from her husband.
Yes, there's Richard Holbrooke the egotist, and General Petraeus comes through looking great. No one lays a glove on the General. The Secretary of Defense Robert Gates gets very high marks in the book. Over and over again, when you read Woodward, you recognize that the story you are reading is not something that is covered anywhere else. You are a part of the decision making process. You are involved. You know who makes sense and who doesn't, who's brilliant, and who's all talk, and no show.
I have given you pieces here and pieces there, a flavoring of a giant ice cream Sundae. Every page has a great story, and there is nothing superfluous in this great read. This book gets five stars. If you love politics, a good story, history, and reading what a great author operating at the peak of his powers can do, read Obama's Wars, and thank you for reading this review.
Richard C. Stoyeck
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