Book depicts intense internal White House dissension, says aides doubt Obama’s Afghan strategy
By APWednesday, September 22, 2010
Book says aides doubt Obama’s Afghan strategy
WASHINGTON — A new book depicts intense policy and turf battles inside the Obama White House, with some members of the president’s national security team doubting his strategy in Afghanistan will work.
The book, “Obama’s Wars,” by journalist Bob Woodward, says Obama aides were deeply divided over the war even as the president agreed to triple troop levels there.
Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the president’s Afghanistan adviser, is described as believing the president’s review of the Afghanistan war did not “add up” to the decision he made. Richard Holbrooke, the president’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, is quoted as saying of the strategy, “It can’t work.”
The New York Times and Washington Post reported on the book Tuesday in advance of its publication.
