you remember those three-hour strategy sessions in the basement of the west wing last fall. apparently now, it was an administration at odds with it. at one point, the president is characterized, boiling over with frustration at the military. he felt they were trying to box him in so that 40,000 more troops that had been requested by mcchrystal and backed up by general petraeus, he felt he needed an exit strategy. at one point, apparently telling lindsey graham about the book that i cannot afford to lose the entire democratic party. richard holbrooke reportedly saying that the strategies the president came up with cannot work and in sort of a retorque, joe biden said of holbrooke, this is the most egotistcal
woodward tells the story of a president in turmoil foiting not only to get out of afghanistan, but fighting with his own inner circle. the president says, i have two years with the public on this and, later, i want an exit strategy. but he didn t get it. the book also shows a lot of strong personalities. vice president joe biden calls richard holbrooke the special rep the most egotistical bastard i ve ever met. he has written extensively on war strategy. thank you very much for joining us. my pleasure, thank you. president obama is quoted as saying, this is a direct quote from the book. this needs to be a plan about how we re going to hand off and get out of afghanistan. then he repeatedly, apparently, pushed his top military advisors for an exit plan and they didn t give it it him. does this in a way summarize the dilemma overall.
you keep fighting. this is the kind of fight we re in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids lives. i mean, and now he s the guy who is in charge of the exit strategy in afghanistan. what do you make of that? look, petraeus is the best person we ve had in uniform since world war ii. he s brilliant. he s thoughtful. he will be loyal to the administration. however, however, we re now doing probably 8, $9 billion a month burn rate in afghanistan. we ve got over 9,000 killed and wounded. our allies are starting to pull out. the american people don t support the war. so the poor president, i m sympathetic to him. he doesn t want a disaster. remember, 400,000 people got murdered by the taliban before we got in there. so he didn t want a short-term disaster, but politically he can t commit himself to a long-term strategy in afghanistan. this is going to be a decade-long effort. pat, you ver be ebeen insidee
saying it can t work. the book s other details of disagreement and fiction include vice president biden once calling holbrook the most ego tis particular call bastard he had ever met. disrespect between mike mullen and james cart write and colonel david petraeus telling somebody he didn t like talking to advisor david axelrod because in his words axelrod was a complete spin doctor. the white house is reacting to all of this and saying it shouldn t be that much of a surprise. jen on fox top story. what do they mean. sources tell me, shep, the white house cooperated with woodward, giving him transcripts from classified situation room debates. the quotes so previce they could only be from a transcript. the white house is also pleased because president obama is shown to be plotting an exit strategy from afghanistan which is good for him politically with his democratic base.
battles inside the white house over war policy. ed henry joins us now. good to see you. any attention-grabbing headlines so far. reporter: it s interesting because what you see in the washington post and new york times, getting early copies of this book, supposed to be published next week, suggest that the president in these deliberations, when he was considering a buy draul of u.s. troops and selled on july to bring troops home, there was political pressure there, the book quoting the president saying i want an exit strategy. i can t lose the whole democratic party, suggesting he was reacting to pressure from liberals, and a quote attributed to richard holbrooke, a senior adviser on pakistan policy, saying the new policy on afghanistan can t work. there are details about in-fighting, et cetera. senior administration officials say we know there is division.