In a memoir, Gen (r) Stanley A McChrystal, the former American commander in Afghanistan, wrote that tensions between the White House and the Pentagon were evident in the Obama administration from its opening months in office.
The beginning of President Obama’s first term “saw the emergence of an unfortunate deficit of trust between the White House and the Department of Defense, largely arising from the decision-making process on Afghanistan,” General McChrystal writes. “The effects were costly.” The book by General (r) McChrystal, who was fired from his post in 2010 after an article in Rolling Stone quoted him and his staff making dismissive comments about the White House, is likely to disappoint readers who are looking for a vivid blow-by-blow account of infighting within the administration. The book, titled “My Share of the Task: A Memoir,” does not provide an account of the White House meeting at which Mr. Obama accepted the general’s resignation. General McChrystal’s tone towards Obama is respectful, and he notes that his wife, Annie, joined the crowd at Obama’s inauguration. The book is to be released on Monday.
An advance copy of the book which provides revealing glimpses of the friction over military planning comes as Obama is weighing, and perhaps preparing to overrule, the request for more troops which has been made by the current American commander in Afghanistan, Gen John R Allen. The account is all the more noteworthy since General (r) McChrystal, who retired from the army, remains a respected voice within the military and teaches a course on leadership at Yale.
According to the book, the tensions began before General McChrystal took command in Kabul and were set off by a request from his predecessor, Gen David D McKiernan, for 30, 000 additional troops at the end of the Bush administration. Instead of approving the entire request, in February 2009, Obama decided that 17, 000 would be sent and additional deployments would be based on further analysis. From the White House perspective, General (r) McChrystal writes, “this partial decision was logical.” After less than a month, the president had increased American forces in Afghanistan by 50 percent. Though Obama had cast the conflict in Afghanistan as a “war of necessity,” as a candidate he was nonetheless wary about a prolonged American military involvement there.
Fearing that there was little time to reverse the Taliban’s gains before the August elections in Afghanistan, the Pentagon pressed for an additional 4, 000 troops. “The military felt a sense of urgency, seeing little remaining time if any forces approved were to reach Afghanistan in time to improve security in advance of the elections,” he wrote. Although, the White House approved the 4, 000 troops, but the dispute caused a deeper clash of cultures over the use of force that continued after General (r) McChrystal took command. “Military leaders, many of whom were students of counterinsurgency, recognized the dangers of an incremental escalation, and the historical lesson that ‘trailing’ an insurgency typically condemned counterinsurgents to failure,” he wrote.
General McChrystal details Pentagon tensions with Obama on Afghanistan
