Obama’s Wars by Bob Woodward (PDF)

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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.

User’s Reviews

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⭐The book is Obama’s Wars. Plural. Yet, the only war discussed in the volume is Afghanistan. Not Iraq. So, what wars? The wars are Obama v. the generals. The generals win. Woodward’s story is the insider view of how the generals rolled the president.As Woodward shows in his revealing work, once Obama selected his aids, the die was cast. Cast for permanent neo-con warfare. Woodward takes us through the excruciating staff meetings, which went on for months. All to come to the foregone conclusion.As the book relates, rather that select a National Security Advisor with a world view (e.g. a Kissinger type), Obama selected General Jones, who he hardly knew. Jones was a serious and able Marine four star. His goal was to present to the president the various views of the military, security and intelligence. Unfortunately, as the book makes clear on page after page, there was only one view.For Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Obama inherited Admiral Mullen. Mullen’s two immediate predecessors were emasculated by their boss, Rumsfeld, and did as they were told. Mullen, on the other hand, echoed the notions of his nominal subordinate, the head of Centcom, General Petraeus, the acknowledged Mars of counterintelligence warfare. Mullen presented no independent analysis or view.The civilian above Mullen was Bush’s man Gates, who Obama retained. Unlike Rumsfeld, who insisted on his own way, Gates, like Mullen, presented no independent view different from those of Petraeus.At State, Obama inserted Hillary Clinton. Under different leadership, State might have offered an opposing world view from that of the Pentagon. Not here. Clinton aligned herself with Petraeus and rubber stamped everything the generals insisted upon.At CIA, Obama installed Panetta, who as the book shows, was immediately rolled by his predecessor, Hayden, during the confirmation process. Panetta folded like a cheap suit. Furthermore, Panetta, Woodward tells us, felt that a Democratic president had to give the military anything it asked for. So much for the studied opinion of the intelligence community.This left VP Biden to shoulder the opposition, such as it was. This gets one into the weeds. High Weeds. We watch the parties debate and parry and thrust over the arcane differences between counter terrorism and counter intelligence. Biden, for what it was worth, favored counter terrorism.No one. Neither the president nor any of his men, at any time, suggested that the neo-con premise of the war was incorrect. For the neo-cons, who came to power under Bush, the medium is the message. The war is the reason for the war. The idea is to project American force. This is the object of the exercise. The Bush premise, which resulted in the endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (with Iran soon to follow) was never challenged or disputed. It was accepted that the United States was in a perpetual war. There was no objection raised to the neo-con theory of force projection.Even with everyone on the same page regarding the philosophy of being at war, would it not still be possible for Obama, as president, to manage the size of the force? No way. They had him rolled from the begining. How did they do it? Woodward shows us.Immediately, the Pentagon gave Obama a troop request for 17,000 additional troops. Told this was needed or disaster would follow, he agreed. Then there was a review of the situation, which resulted in a request for 4,000 more troops. Obama agreed. It was declared by all that there would be no more troop requests until a review in one year. Immediately, the Pentagon got Obama to fire the completely competent General McKernan, as commander in Afghanistan, and substitute General McCrystal, who Obama had never even met. McCrystal then insisted on his own new review. Before McCrystal’s request for troops was even on Obama’s desk, the generals commenced action. Their attack was multi-pronged. Mullen, who Obama had unaccountably reappointed, blindsided the president at Senate confirmation hearings, by announcing the need for more troops. Petraeus got Bush speechwriter Gerson to pen an op-ed stating that more troops were needed. McCrystal, himself, gave a speech in London outling his troop request. Petraeus, ever the busy soul, got the neo-con trio of McCain-Lieberman-Graham to write an op-ed insisiting on more troops.Only after this assault, did McCrystal inform the president of his request for 40,000 more troops. Meeting after meeting after meeting followed. The conclusion was predetermined.Woodward’s method, as with his other books, is to take you inside the room. The thoughts, words, actions of the participants are presented in a matter of fact manner. No summations. No conclusions. No opinions of the author. Just the facts, as told to Woodward by the parties.And if one is involved, why not spill? If you don’t, the guy sitting next to you will. Then it will be his version of the events that is told.Read it for the details. Read it for the how it happened. It is truly a great read. You won’t be able to put it down.The generals rolled the president. And you know what? It really wasn’t that hard to do.

⭐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

⭐Bob Woodward, co-hero of the Watergate disclosures, is on the point of giving us his take on President Trump. Having got out of touch with his work since Nixon, I thought it was time to refamiliarise myself to some degree, so on spotting a Marketplace copy going for £0.01 plus postage I leapt into action, and I can certainly recommend others to do as near likewise as they can.A reviewer can reasonably be expected to tell his readers what the book is about, so let me say candidly that I’m guessing about that to a certain extent. Why ‘WarS’ – plural? The one war in question is the war in Afghanistan, but I more than half suspect that Woodward is elevating the Washington infighting to some kind of war status. One does not have to be American to be familiar with the backstabbing, leaking and doublespeak that goes on. What astonished me was not so much its extent as the downright blatancy of it. Here are cabinet decisions, painstakingly kept clear, being questioned as if they had never happened. Here are military strategies, still undecided and under powerful questioning, being aired in the public prints by the very generals who were still supposed to be part of the decision-making process. Obviously we have to keep in mind the scenario of a rookie President, not yet 50 years old, with a mere 4 years’ experience in the US Senate and no service in the armed forces. All the same you could not precisely say that Dwight D. Eisenhower on taking office as President lacked military background, yet as far as establishing his writ in Washington we know what his predecessor said ‘That goddam general will sit in this goddam chair and he’ll say “Do this” and “Do that” and not one goddam thing will happen.’What the story is largely about is the way that the inexperienced but cerebral and determined young president got used to this and by the end of the book was becoming more forceful with his supposed subordinates. He sacked General Stan McChrystal for one glaring offence, and that not the first such either. Interestingly, Woodward seems to say that this took the military aback, so I would have loved to see what the history of this kind of situation was. Whether this book is intended in part as a study of Obama’s development as a leader in certain particular circumstances I don’t know, but whether it is or not, even a plain listing of the relevant instances could hardly avoid creating this impression. By the end of this long book the war in Afghanistan is still in progress, but it appears at least the actions being taken are in accordance with Commander-in-Chief’s commands-in-chief.The style of the book does not sit with me very well, but this is the great Bob Woodward and this is one particular kind of American journalism even if not my own favourite kind. It is really the chronicle of a war of ideas, but it is presented entirely as a string of statements by the participants. To try to get more of an impression of these men of destiny (plus Hillary of course) I turned gratefully to the set of b/w plates infixed to the middle of the volume. Here we found mainly middle-aged men in suits or uniforms, and all of course white except for the c-in-c himself. Whether they are all made of ticky-tacky I couldn’t say, but they all look the same to me. The drama of ideas here was real and it was to say the least important, but the ideas are purveyed to us by these waxworks, and I could not help feeling at times that this presentation trivialised the issues. There is even another basic question on which I can’t make up my mind, and it’s whether the battle-forces correspond, at least roughly, to uniforms versus civilians. It works out like that at times, but these dramatis personae consist of individuals, and when they organise themselves into alliances the alliances keep re-forming their memberships. I wonder whether Bob Woodward has some update for us regarding this in the new era of Trump.Very rightly Bob Woodward explains, or tries to explain, in his preface how he managed to come by so much confidential information, and I am not going to summarise, or try to summarise, this in a review, as I think that would just pile a Mount Pelion of speculation and uncertainty on top of the Ossa of doubt that Woodward has already assembled. Having a set of talking heads to put all this vital data across to us is the kind of semi-chatty idiom that does not appeal to me. What should be a Thucydidean exposition of forceful ideas forging history through the mouths of major spokesmen (plus of course Hillary again) becomes a kind of rambling set of meeting-minutes. I have seen it apparently suggested by another reviewer that this makes the book too long, and I would have to admit that I found it a slightly laboured read. Never mind, it’s Bob Woodward, and it will be a long time if ever that I shall read an account of all this whose honesty I can simply take as read from the start.

⭐I read this book deliberately as, having preordered the new Trump book ‘Fear’, I was interested to see how Woodward treated the work of a president of whom he largely approved, before going on to the Trump book. The styles of each president being entirely opposite: one dealing with war from an intellectual approach, the other not. The book is very informative as to the degree of pressure a group of military advisers try to exert on the commander in chief and how the military advisers disagree among themselves, frustrating and delaying any final decisions. However, Obama finally prevailed. The book seemed to stop suddenly, with few if any conclusions being drawn. Just like any ongoing situation. An interesting and well crafted book which, although full of detail, was never boring.

⭐After reading ‘The Price of Politics’ I decided to read ‘Obama’s Wars’, Woodward’s earlier work on the Obama administration. And I have to say this book was a disappointment after the excitement of ‘The Price of Politics’.The content of the book is very interesting. Woodward proves once again he is unique in acquiring often damning information about the failures of George W. Bush and members of Barack Obama’s inner circle. But some of information is stretched out over four or five pages when it could easily have been cut down to one. Sometimes the words went over my head and I had to force myself to re-read whole sections of the book, something I never had to do with ‘The Price of Politics’.Slightly disappointing but worth a read.

⭐Woodward’s take on how President Obama had to tackle the war in Afghanistan and how to both wind it down while at the same time trying to solve the problem of a complacent Pakistan that was both fighting and abetting al-Qaeda inside their borders. Brings into focus George Bush’s administrations lack of having an end game to the war that they started and then had no clue how to end or solve the problems that it created.

⭐Good insight into the complexity of US engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Didn’t leave this book feeling anything but pessimistic about our world and our entanglement in the Middle East which has no real solutions that will come from US or Europe.

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