saying quote i have two years with the public on this. insisting i want an exit strategy at one meeting and saying i can t let this be a war without end. quote, i can t lose the whole democratic party. lieutenant bill callen. john bolton, and simon rosenberg president of a left leaning think tank and former adviser to president bill clinton. ambassador bolton let me start with you. there are stunning allegations by bob woodward in this book. the two perhaps biggest are number one president obama set this withdrawal date because he cares about the democratic party, he doesn t want to lose the whole democratic party. number two when speaking about a possible terrorist attack and this nation, he says, quote, we can absorb a terrorist attack. we ll do everything we can to prevent it. but even at 9/11 we object
according to a new book, behind the scenes, the president was looking for anyway out of the afghan war. curious, no? we are breaking it down here. the president repeatedly pressed his top military advisers and white house team, apparently, for an exit plan but ultimately settled on a compromise in which he sent 30,000 additional troops to the battlefield, interesting exit strategy, no? the storyline from obama s wars by bob woodward. do keep in mind since the president was in office, the number of total u.s. boots on the ground in afghanistan has nearly tripled. now, here is what confuses me the most. isn t the president of the united states our commander in chief? isn t it ultimately his decision as to when he wants to put our soldiers and american families lives at risk on behalf of this country? and if his gut was right, why does it seem he bowed to those around him? even more offensive, or equally so why would any sitting
campfiring back. the candidate for senate in delaware with the hopes of the tea party on her shoulders says she did not violate any election ethics and that her opponent and the national media are just out to get her. o donnell also said she won t be giving any more national tv interviews with six weeks to go till election day. and bill clinton, not the man he used to be. some might say he s half the man he used to be. he s slimmed down considerably dropping some 25 pounds. he tells cnn s wolf blitzer how he did it and why. and our big story this morning. claims of an internal struggle inside of the white house over what to do in afghanistan. it s all laid out in a new book by bob woodward called obama s wars, and excerpts have just been released. they paint a portrait of a president desperate for an exit strategy and clashing with
mentioned, the allegation that holbrooke told the president the policy won t work. he is a senior adviser. that s significant if true. also, the fact that there s a quote attributed to the president saying in private he wanted an exit strategy out of afghanistan and said, quote, i can t lose the whole democratic party. a suggestion at least in this book, a claim that the president was basing the idea of beginning the withdrawal of troops from afghanistan in the summer of 2011 on the notion that liberals in the democratic party pressuring him to have sort of exit strategy so this is bottom line something the white house prefers not to be talking about right now. the president has a big event later this afternoon on health care reform. they want to be talking about economy, jobs. about six weeks before the midterms. division within this white house over afghan policy is not what they want to talk about. the book wasn t a big surprise but the timing couldn t have been worse. reporter:
doctor. president obama apparently came up with his own afghanistan plan and what it was was to get out as soon as possible. apparently, he kept trusting his military commanders to give him an exit strategy and unfortunately, they all came back and said we actually have to increase troop levels. we heard a lot about this infighting as he was trying to make this decision. we knew that hillary clinton did not agree with him and we knew that joe biden was on the over side thinking we should probably get out right away. one of the quotes from obama about the afghan war. i have two years with the public on this. i want an exit strategy. i can t lose the whole democratic party. was he making decisions for political reasons or for troops reasons? and for safety of the country reasons. that s a very interesting statement. you mean the necessary war? remember the necessary war he ran on. it s unbelievable that this would come out in the way it did. he sit down with the experts, all the gene