what you see in the book is that he felt trapped by being in afghanistan. he had campaigned against the war in iraq. afghanistan and the commitment there was really the exit strategy from iraq. it was clear to the military you couldn t do both. afghanistan is where they felt, because of the importance of pakistan, as chuck correctly points out, and india as well, the whole region, the war on terror, it made sense but strategically, it made sense, but still is not an easy thing to do militarily and it is very clear at he is aware going in that it is not something you can be do in a year or two. and so one would ask, if you have loved ones there, you know, why are we going to be any better off a year or two years or three years from now than we are right now? and there is no good answer to that. well, the preside told the chairman of the joint chiefs, mike mullin, and general petraeus and secretary gates, in 2010, we will not be having a conversation about how to do more. i will not w
much as anything else. reporter: absolutely. in fact the timing of the book and the book s publishing appears time to sway the midterm elections showing the democratic base he roll opposed the war in afghanistan though he agreed to send 30,000 more troops, now, this is what he said according to bob woodward, when he was when the request for 40,000 troops came in. he said, i m not doing ten years, he told secretary of defense gates and secretary of state hillary rodham clinton at a meeting on october 26th, 2009, i m not doing long termination-building, i m not spending a trillion dollars. i have two years with the public on this and i want an exit strategy and i cannot lose the whole democratic party. bill? bill: jennifer, these are quotes now from the president s national security team about afghan president hamid karzai. how did they view him. do they think he s capable? and, more? reporter: well, in fact the u.s. ambassador to afghanistan,
for a team of rivals, but, this takes rivalry and in fighting to a new level and there s an under lying impression, bill, that the president thinks the pentagon and his generals are trying to get him to expand the war in afghanistan. allah vietn via vietnam and, robert gates, in 2010, we will not have a conversation about how to do more, we will not want to hear we re doing fine, mr. president, but, we would be better if we do more, the book says and we will not have a conversation about how to change the mission, unless we are talking about how to draw down faster than anticipated in 2011. and, the president according to woodward gets frustrated when he keeps getting presented plans to expand the war when all he is looking for, in his own words, is an exit strategy, bill. bill: jennifer, it is clear in the book, based on the excerpts, it is clear, i should say, that this is a political decision as
president for spending that amount of time thinking about the war strategy and coming up with his own plan. the only problem is none of the military experts agreed with it so in that kay, you have to defer to the military expert. it s a war. listen to the military guys. exactly. now we know. remember when there was that long amount of time before the president made the decision about going to afghanistan. now we know why. nobody was agreeing about anything. the thing is it s wrong. the generals were agreeing. he was not agreeing with the generals so it s like having fireman ed design a game plan for the jets to beat the dolphins. are you kidding me? use your experts. he didn t want to fight this war that he told us was the necessary war. and apparently, according to the book, because he did not want the entire democrat base to leave the party. here s another quote from this book. i have two years with the public on this meaning the afghanistan war. i want an exit strategy. i
before the midterm elections, have you a president with a very unpopular war, his democratic base doesn t want us to be in afghanistan, so they have this book being leaked out with private conversations between his national security team and him where he s in fact saying that i don t really believe in the troop surge that he signed off on sending 30,000 troops over there in the last year. that he is serious about an exit strategy, he wants them out by july 2011. this all plays into political hands because in essence it s saying that, yes i went along with my generals, along with the pentagon, i sent the 30,000 troops but i want them out almost as soon as they ve unpacked. megyn: yet some of the quotes from his generals and his national security team in this thing are apparently as bad as what general stanley mcchrystal told rolling stone which of course got him fired. reporter: it s true. and in fact i think some of the quotes attributed to general