According to White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, the Obama administration’s procrastination in supplying Obama-appointed General Stanley McChrystal’s request for 40,000 additional troops is the fault of the Bush administration for failing to address important issues, with which the current administration now has to grapple.
Emanuel’s Claims
On Oct. 18, 2009, President Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, appeared on State of the Union with John King and accused the Bush administration of having done nothing regarding the Afghanistan situation. Emanuel said the Obama administration was “beginning at scratch, and just from the starting point, after eight years.”
Emanuel also listed questions that he insisted have not been asked by his predecessors: “What is the impact on the region? What can the Afghan government do or not do? Where are we on the police training? Who would be better doing the police training? Could that be something the Europeans do? Should we take the military side?”
Cheney’s Response to Emanuel’s Claims
On Oct. 22, 2009, during his address at the Center for Security Policy’s Keeper of the Flame Dinner, former Vice-President Dick Cheney disputed the allegation made by Emanuel that the Obama administration had to start from scratch to formulate an Afghan war strategy. Cheney claims that the Bush administration handed the Obama transition team an exhaustive strategy.
Offering the details of that strategy review, Stephen F. Hayes of the Weekly Standard reports that during the final months of the Bush administration between September and November 2008, General Doug Lute led a team of National Security advisors on a fact-finding mission to review Afghanistan policy. The team included officials from the Pentagon, the State Department, the CIA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the office of the vice-president, and the office of the director of national intelligence.
The Lute team had informed President Bush of it findings, and according to National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, they provided the Obama transition team with the same information. They had addressed and answered the questions that Emanuel then said had not been addressed. Hadley said, "General Jones [Obama’s National Security Advisor] was briefed on the results of the Lute review, and that review answered many of the questions that Rahm Emanuel says were never asked.”
Obama Team Asks to Keep Report Under Wraps
Obama’s National Security Advisor, General Jim Jones, of the Obama transition team, requested that the results of the Lute team not be made public, because they wanted to conduct a review of their own. The Bush administration agreed. After Obama was sworn in, he called for former CIA official Bruce Riedel to conduct an Afghanistan review and to make recommendations.
On March 27, 2009, when the Obama strategy was revealed, it looked remarkably like Bush/Lute strategy. Vice-President Cheney explains: “The new strategy they embraced in March, with a focus on counterinsurgency and an increase in the numbers of troops, bears a striking resemblance to the strategy we passed to them. They made a decision – a good one, I think – and sent a commander into the field to implement it.”
Is the Current Procrastination Based on Politics?
According to Bruce Riedel of the Obama team, politics is the driving force behind what Cheney calls Obama’s “dithering.” Hayes reports, “Several top White House officials, including Emanuel, Jones, David Axelrod, and Joe Biden, remain skeptical of escalating U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan. And according to the man who conducted the Afghanistan review for the Obama White House, Bruce Riedel, politics is at the center of those concerns.”
Cheney asserts his dissatisfaction with the “dithering,” saying, “Now they seem to be pulling back and blaming others for their failure to implement the strategy they embraced.” And the vice-president adds, “It’s time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity.”
Sources:
- Interview with Rahm Emanuel, CNN, Transcripts
- Former Vice President Dick Cheney on National Security, C-Span Video Library
- Stephen F. Hayes, “Obama’s Minions are Ingrates,” The Weekly Standard, Nov 2, 2009, Vol. 15, No. 07
Linda Sue Grimes - As a writer, researcher, and SRF devotee, Linda Sue Grimes has studied poetry and practiced Kriya Yoga for over thirty years..
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