Gates takes aim at Obama, Biden in new book

Former US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in a book due out later this month, says President Barack Obama was openly distrustful of the US military leadership.

Gates writes that by early 2010 he had concluded the president “doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war [in Afghanistan] to be his.”

He writes that Obama appeared to doubt his own strategy in Afghanistan to the point of being “outright convinced it would fail.”

The US deployed 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan before starting to remove soldiers in mid-2011.

Gates, 70, who has served every president since Nixon, with the exception of Bill Clinton, says he was frequently “seething” because he felt Obama and his team had neither trust nor confidence in him.

Gate’s book, “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War,” is scheduled for a Jan. 14 release and was first reported by The Washington Post and The New York Times.

The former defense secretary also criticizes Vice President Joe Biden, accusing him of “poisoning the well” for military leadership.

“The president disagrees with Secretary Gates’ assessment — from his leadership on the Balkans in the Senate, to his efforts to end the war in Iraq, Joe Biden has been one of the leading statesmen of his time, and has helped advance America’s leadership in the world,” writes Gates, who also worked at the CIA and National Security Council.

Despite his criticism of President Obama, Gates writes about the commander in chief’s primary Afghanistan polices: “I believe Obama was right in each of these decisions.” He also writes approvingly about Obama in several other passages, calling him “a man of personal integrity.”

In reaction to the new book, National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said that President Obama “welcomes differences of view among his national security team, which broaden his options and enhance our policies.” But he added that Obama “disagrees with Secretary Gates’ assessment — from his leadership on the Balkans in the Senate, to his efforts to end the war in Iraq, Joe Biden has been one of the leading statesmen of his time, and has helped advance America’s leadership in the world.”