Legal Commentary

Woodward's Book on Obama and Afghanistan

By Jeralyn

Bob Woodward's book on the division between Obama and his advisors on the war in Afghanistan is making big news. Republicans hope they can play it up and gain votes in November. Sample over-the-top headline: The Guardian, which proclaims " Obama Presidency hobbled by discord."

The Obama presidency is hobbled by discord and mutual contempt among its senior policy-makers and top generals according to a new book which is likely to damage the administration in November's congressional elections and undermine its efforts in Afghanistan.

The book, Obama's Wars, by the veteran investigative journalist Bob Woodward, is out on Monday, but extracts published overnight by the Washington Post and the New York Times make it clear that it will hurt the administration in the runup to mid-term elections, in which Democrats are already struggling and in which they are expected to lose control of the House of Representatives.

I hope that was written by a Guardian opinion writer rather than a news journalist, because the conclusions it draws are anything but "clear" and "likely." The WaPo excerpt of the book is here. The White House says it's pleased with the book.

Another passage causing discussion:

During an interview with Woodward in July, the president said, "We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever . . . we absorbed it and we are stronger."

Slate's John Dickerson asked a White House official who was familiar with the interview what Obama meant:

The president was talking with Woodward about the national-security threats he faced upon becoming president—the possible dangers and the fact that the terrorists had to be right only once, whereas the president and his team had to be right every time.

This led the president to talk about the need to prioritize. Objectively, the president said, you would want to be able to stop every attack, but a president has to prioritize. So what does the president put at the top of the danger list? A nuclear weapon or a weapon of mass destruction. Why? Because—and here's where the quote in question comes in—as bad as 9/11 was, the United States was not crippled. A nuclear attack or weapon of mass destruction, however, would be a "game changer," to use a popular cliché.

What else is in the book besides the discord? From the Times:

Beyond the internal battles, the book offers fresh disclosures on the nation’s continuing battle with terrorists. It reports that the C.I.A. has a 3,000-man “covert army” in Afghanistan called the Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams, or C.T.P.T., mostly Afghans who capture and kill Taliban fighters and seek support in tribal areas. Past news accounts have reported that the C.I.A. has a number of militias, including one trained on one of its compounds, but not the size of the covert army.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on September 22, 2010 (boomark / email).