Bob Woodward, who has made a career out of getting decision-makers to open up about some of the most important political issues of our times, is back on bookshelves with "Obama's Wars," about U.S. military actions in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Tim Rutten writes that the book includes details of White House "name-calling and backbiting" and has "sobering revelations aplenty." According to Woodward, at the last National Security Council he convened before leaving office, Bush decided to suppress a report on the Afghan situation he'd commissioned from his "war czar," Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute. That review concluded the United States had no coordinated strategy in Afghanistan, that we were neither losing nor winning the war there, that the local government was hopelessly corrupt and that the far greater strategic threat to American security was in Pakistan. Woodward gives a grim account of the secretive visit Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) made to Islamabad and Kabul on Obama's behalf early in his term. They confronted Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari over his intelligence agency's ties to the Taliban and the impunity with which Al Qaeda operates in his country and came away without much confidence in his ability to remedy matters. Things were worse in Kabul, where there was an angry confrontation with President Hamid Karzai — who, according to U.S. intelligence, is a manic-depressive subject to wild mood swings despite medication — over his government's corruption and general ineffectuality. Source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jac...ing-revelations-bob-woodward-obamas-wars.html I want to read that book!
about the same book in The Times of India: Obama warns Pakistan that he will respond this time WASHINGTON: Frustrated over Pakistan's lackluster response to the war against terrorism, US President Barack Obama, sent his top aides to warn Pakistan that he would have no other option but to respond, if they do not take decisive action against terrorist safe havens. Adding to the frustration, the Pakistani establishment in particular the all powerful Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani refused to adhere to any of the four demands the US made through National Security Adviser Gen James Jones and CIA chief Leon Panetta during that trip in May this year, says noted investigative journalist Bob Woodward, in his latest book, "Obama's War". "The President wants everyone in Pakistan to understand if such an attack connected to a Pakistani group is successful there are some things even he would not be able to stop. Just there are political realities in Pakistan, there are realities in the United States. No one will be able to stop the response and consequences. There is not a threat, just a statement of political fact," Zardai was told during the meeting, the book claims. Giving a series of specific instances how terrorists' leaders are operating unhindered inside Pakistan, Jones told Zardari that Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the LeT commander if the 2008 Mumbai attacks, is not being adequately interrogated and "he continues to direct LeT operations from his detention center." LeT is operating in Afghanistan and the group carried out a recent attack at a guesthouse there. Intelligence also shows that LeT is threatening attacks in the United States and the possibility is rising each day, Jones said according to the book. After meeting Zardari, US officials met Kayani, wherein Jones told the Pakistan Army Chief that the clock was starting now all the four requests made by Obama. "But Kayani would not budge very much. He had other concerns. "I'll be the first to admit, I'm India centric," he said, according to the book. Read more: Obama warns Pakistan that he will respond this time: Book - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...me-Book/articleshow/6643732.cms#ixzz10sLMeKbT