Free Republic

The State Department has acknowledged that five U.S. personnel killed in Afghanistan, including 25-year-old diplomat Anne Smedinghoff, were on foot when they were attacked by a suicide bomber, and not in an armored vehicle, as officials had told bereaved relatives earlier this week. The violent deaths of U.S. diplomatic personnel — and the State Department’s changing account of how they died — harken back to the debacle in Benghazi, Libya, where Islamist extremists killed four Americans in assaults on the U.S. diplomatic compound on Sept. 11. “We are able to clarify at this point that they were

The Obama Administration is deliberately misleading Americans about the drone war it is waging in Pakistan. Can anyone read the McClatchy Newspapers summary of top-secret intelligence reports and continue to deny it? Set aside the morality and effectiveness of the CIA's targeted-killing program. Isn't it important for Congress and the people to know the truth about the War on Terrorism? Many Americans remain furious that the Bush Administration gave Iraq War speeches that elided inconvenient truths and implied facts that turned out to be fictions. Is the objection merely that the Iraq War turned out badly? Or is misleading Congress...

Washington (CNN) – Two leading Republican lawmakers said Tuesday that reports of chemical weapons use in Syria, if true, mean the president's threshold for involvement in the country's civil war has been met. Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who have led calls in Congress for greater U.S. involvement in Syria, issued a joint statement saying the attacks, if verified, would demand a response from President Barack Obama. “If today’s reports are substantiated, the President’s red line has been crossed, and we would urge him to take immediate action to impose the consequences he has promised," the senators wrote.

President Obama didn’t make any phone calls the night of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the White House said in a letter to Congress released Thursday. “During the entire attack, the president of the United States never picked up the phone to put the weight of his office in the mix,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, who had held up Mr. Obama’s defense secretary nominee to force the information to be released. Mr. Graham said that if Mr. Obama had picked up the phone, at least two of the Americans killed in...

Link only

Kyl suggests Benghazi 'cover-up' Sen. Jon Kyl, (R-Ariz.) suggests the Obama administration orchestrated a "cover-up" of the events that led to the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead. "There are three questions that have to be answered," Kyl said in an interview aired Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union," appearing on a panel with three other retiring senators. "Why weren't the warnings about the need for security heeded? Why weren't the requests for help during the ted attack answered and why did the administration think...

Four American service members were killed by an Afghan policeman early today, the third attack on coalition forces in three days, bringing the death toll in the recent violence to eight. The attacks -- two "green on blue" incidents and an assault on a coalition base by 15 Taliban fighters -- come as tensions flared across the Muslim world over an anti-Islam film that was produced in the United States. In the latest attack, an Afghan police officer turned his gun on NATO troops at a remote checkpoint in southern Afghanistan before dawn. Four U.S. soldiers were killed before the...

The senior commander for Special Operations forces in Afghanistan has suspended training for all new Afghan recruits until the more than 27,000 Afghan troops working with his command can be re-vetted for ties to the insurgency. The move comes as NATO officials struggle to stem the tide of attacks on NATO forces by their Afghan colleagues. The attacks, which have killed 45 troops this year, have forced NATO officials to acknowledge a painful truth: Many of the incidents might have been prevented if existing security measures had been applied correctly. But numerous military guidelines were not followed — by Afghans...

Taliban-led insurgents opened a spring offensive Sunday with a wave of coordinated suicide missions, firing at embassies and government offices from seized buildings in Kabul and attacking U.S. bases and police stations in three eastern provinces. The strikes, which seemed to catch U.S.-led forces and Afghan authorities by surprise, sparked fierce firefights in Kabul and two other cities that underscored the insurgency's lethality as U.S. combat troops gird for the second phase of a withdrawal due to end in 2014.

President Barack Obama has a PR problem when it comes to Afghanistan, to say the least. Once the must-fight war for America, the decade-long mission has spiraled into a series of U.S. missteps and violent outbreaks that have left few ardent political supporters. After NATO detained a U.S. soldier Sunday for allegedly killing sleeping Afghan villagers, Republicans and Democrats alike pointed to the stress on troops after years of fighting and reiterated calls to leave by the end of 2014 as promised, if not sooner. "It's just not a good situation," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "Our troops...

War On Terror: Have the president's swift military pullouts from Afghanistan and Iraq served U.S. interests? All we see is a "surge" on U.S. targets by our enemies, while our secretary of state pleads with them not to meddle. Pakistani-backed Taliban fighters on Saturday set off a 1,500-pound bomb on an armored vehicle full of American troops and allies, killing 18. It was their biggest armed attack on a U.S. target since they downed a helicopter carrying elite SEALs shortly after the unit took out Osama bin Laden. It was also the biggest attack ever against a U.S. target within...

President Barack Obama delivered on another foreign policy promise on Friday with plans to pull the last U.S. troops from Iraq. But in a re-election campaign all about the weak U.S. economy, he may not get much credit. Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, radical Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi -- these are all dead U.S. opponents that Democrat Obama can claim a measure of credit for getting. Now add to that Obama's announcement on Friday that the eight-year war in Iraq is ending, fulfilling a campaign goal he made in 2008 when he declared the...

All those Occupiers holding their “End the War!” signs better march on over to the White House. President Obama just announced he’s sending U.S. troops to central Africa to fight something called “the Lord’s Resistance Army.” The letter to House GOP Speaker John Boehner: TEXT OF A LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT TO THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND THE PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE OF THE SENATE October 14, 2011 Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:) For more than two decades, the Lord’s Resistance...On October 12, the initial team of U.S. military personnel with appropriate combat equipment deployed to Uganda....

President Obama has deployed combat troops to central Africa to aid in the fight against the Lord's Resistance Army. In a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner, Obama says 12 troops with "appropriate combat equipment" were deployed on October 12 and approximately 100 in total will be deployed including a second combat team and headquarters, communications and logistics personnel. The forces will provide information and advise and assist "select partner nation forces," Obama explains. The troops will not fight except in self-defense. The full letter is after the jump.

President Obama's announcement that only 3,000 troops will be left in Iraq by the end of the year heralds a serious and dangerous downgrade from the current 45,000 troops, spelling disaster for our soldiers. According to a FOXNEWS report, President Obama’s military commanders are livid over this recent decision – a decision that Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, allegedly gave signature to. President Obama may be trying to keep a 2008 campaign promise to remove our troops from Iraq however the problems is that regardless of what some misguided people may say, the war in Iraq is not over, there are...

Politicians often rail against government spending, except when it goes to the military. Conservatives believe there is no such thing as too much defense spending, and liberals don't argue, for fear of being labeled appeasers. So when there is talk of the two parties agreeing to cut the Pentagon budget, it sounds like a monumental change. But probably not. It's a good thing that defense, which accounts for roughly a fifth of all federal outlays, is no longer considered immune to the need for frugality. But both supporters and opponents have a stake in portraying any trims as far more...

BILL O'REILLY, FOX NEWS HOST: Who wouldn't want out of that mess? I mean we're spending billions of dollars over there and we're getting our people killed. Who wouldn't? But, here's the deal. Once you fight, you have to fight to win. You have to fight to win. And, a lot of Americans, including me, are not sure he has the heart for the fight. BOB WOODWARD: It's a fair question. When you look at the record here that's presented in this book, the "X" factor that never comes out, he never -- when I asked him, I said, "Well,...

With the departure of General Jones from the White House, America is losing fine public servant and excellent military man. One of the few in Washington who eschewed the limelight, Jones did his job fairly competently and with a minimum of self promotion. Will we get that lucky with his replacement? The man picked to be President Obama's next national security advisor was sharply criticized by top officials in the administration, with the Secretary of Defense saying he would be a "disaster" in the job. According to the new book about the Obama administration's handling of Iraq and Afghanistan by...

Bob Woodward's searing critique of the Democrats' war strategy comes as key advisers are leaving and voters lose patience with Barack Obama's promise to deliver 'hope and change'. Alex Spillius reports on an increasingly isolated President. When Barack Obama took office 20 months ago – and what a long 20 months it seems – there was a lot of talk about the great "Team of Rivals" he was appointing around him. Parallels were drawn with the cabinet of substantial talents and big personalities assembled by Abraham Lincoln to rebuild the nation after the civil war. Now, in a new book,...

Caller wants to know if he's Democrat or Republican and who he voted for in '68 and '72 (Video)

If the economy’s as flat next winter as it is now, isn’t it a damn near certainty? Obama’s approval rating will be deep in the toilet and Republican candidates will be energized to take on a weak incumbent. His only option will be to jolt the electorate and convince them that term two would be different from term one by welcoming the Clintons aboard. Electing the first woman VP — and anointing her as the likely nominee in 2016 — would help bring home women voters who’d grown tired of Hopenchange and would give Hillary Democrats a reason to turn...

WASHINGTON: The United States has a secret "retribution" plan to bomb more than 150 terror camps in Pakistan in the event of another major terrorist attack originating from that country. This startling disclosure about Washington's "all bets off" policy towards an ostensibly dubious ally in the war on terror is contained in Bob Woodward's opus " Obama's War," which details an evolving US approach in the region. The plan pre-dates the Obama presidency, going back to the Bush White House, but elements of policy, aimed at wiping out terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan, is evident in the current administration's ruthless bombing...

President Obama dispatched his national security adviser, retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, and CIA Director Leon Panetta to Pakistan for a series of urgent, secret meetings on May 19, 2010. Less than three weeks earlier, a 30-year-old U.S. citizen born in Pakistan had tried to blow up an SUV in New York City's Times Square. The crude bomb - which a Pakistan-based terrorist group had taught him to make - smoked but did not explode. Only luck had prevented a catastrophe. "We're living on borrowed time," Jones told Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari at their meeting in Islamabad. "We...

Washington, Sept 23 (ANI): An Afghan paramilitary force with a strength of 3000 well-armed troops, collectively known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams, has been trained and deployed in Afghanistan not only for surveillance, raids and combat operations in Afghanistan, but also for the United States’ secret war in Pakistan against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, according to current and former US officials. While the existence of these teams is disclosed in ‘Obama’s Wars,’ a forthcoming book by famed journalist Bob Woodward, interviews with sources familiar with the CIA’s operations, as well as a review of the database of 76,000 classified U.S. military...

Obama has little faith in the U.S. military fighting the war in Afghanistan. A careful review of reports of Bob Woodward’s new book “Obama’s Wars” tells us the president avoided any mention of victory as he outlined his war objectives. Since the day he took office President Obama desperately looked for a quick exit from Afghanistan. He pressured his military advisors for an exit plan to cut and run leaving the Afghanis to the mercies of the Taliban who will certainly start seeking revenge for their humiliation the day we leave. Obama has been quoted by his staff saying, “This...

President Obama urgently looked for a way out of the war in Afghanistan last year, repeatedly pressing his top military advisers for an exit plan that they never gave him, according to secret meeting notes and documents cited in a new book by journalist Bob Woodward. ... According to Woodward's meeting-by-meeting, memo-by-memo account of the 2009 Afghan strategy review, the president avoided talk of victory as he described his objectives. "This needs to be a plan about how we're going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan," Obama is quoted as telling White House aides as he laid...

Woodward's book portrays Obama and the White House as barraged by warnings about the threat of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and confronted with the difficulty in preventing them. During an interview with Woodward in July, the president said, "We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever . . . we absorbed it and we are stronger."

White House: New Woodward book shows 'decisive' president


 By Sam Youngman - 09/22/10 10:23 AM ET The White House says the new book by famed Washington journalist Bob Woodward, "Obama's Wars," paints a picture of an "analytical, strategic and decisive" wartime president and "does not reveal anything new" about the administration's war strategy. After excerpts of Woodward's book containing explosive revelations appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post late Tuesday night, a senior administration official responded that the full picture is one of a president asking hard questions to make difficult decisions about Afghanistan — not simply...

The new Bob Woodward book portrays President Obama as hard-nosed and demanding in the process of drafting a new U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan last year. And senior White House officials seem pleased by the portrait. "I think the book portrays a thoughtful, vigorous policy process that led us to a strategy to get us the best chance of achieving our objectives and goals in Afghanistan," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. In an exchange with reporters on Air Force One as Mr. Obama flew to New York for two-and-a-half days of diplomacy at the United Nations, Gibbs said he...

Some of the critical players in President Obama’s national security team doubt his strategy in Afghanistan will succeed and have spent much of the last 20 months quarreling with one another over policy, personalities and turf, according to a new book.

Cheney, daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney, said the remark "suggests an alarming fatalism on the part of President Obama and his administration." Here's the full statement: "Americans expect our President to do everything possible to defend the nation from attack. We expect him to use every tool at his disposal to find, defeat, capture and kill terrorists. We expect him to deter attacks by making clear to our adversaries that an attack on the United States will carry devastating consequences. Instead, President Obama is reported to have said, 'We can absorb a terrorist attack.' This comment suggests an...

In early May, White House Counsel Greg Craig circulated a memo inside the West Wing. Part of a series of memos on protocol, it explained how to deal with writers researching books and articles on the White House. (Craig's unsurprising instructions: Clear interview requests with the press office.) While the memo didn't mention any journalists by name--and while there are currently no fewer than half a dozen major reporters under contract to write books about the nascent Obama presidency and the 2008 campaign, any of whom could conceivably end up embarrassing the administration--there is one person in particular the White...

By Bob Woodward Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, September 17, 2007; A03 Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said in an interview that the removal of Saddam Hussein had been "essential" to secure world oil supplies, a point he emphasized to the White House in private conversations before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Greenspan, who was the country's top voice on monetary policy at the time Bush decided to go to war in Iraq, has refrained from extensive public comment on it until now, but he made the striking comment in a new memoir out today that "the Iraq...

NEW YORK (AP) - A Bob Woodward book on the Obama administration is coming out in September.

The publisher's catalog says Bob Woodward's upcoming book on the Obama administration will portray the president struggling for control of his domestic agenda. Simon & Schuster will release the book, currently untitled, this fall.

A senior administration official who read the book says "the President comes across in the review and throughout the decision-making process as a Commander in Chief who is analytical, strategic, and decisive, with a broad view of history, national security, and his role." The official says of the descriptions of the infighting in the book that "the debates in the book are well known because the policy review process was covered so exhaustively." White House officials are still matching New York Times excerpts with anecdotes in the book but one says not all the quoting is fair, especially Vice President...

Frustrated that his top military advisers failed to provide him an exit plan for Afghanistan, President Obama crafted his own strategy, according to a new book by Bob Woodward. In "Obama's War" -- Woodward's meeting-by-meeting account of the 2009 Afghan strategy review -- the president stressed that the plan to add 30,000 troops in a short-term escalation "needs to be . . . about how we're going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan. Everything we're doing has to be focused on how we're going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint. It's in...

Early in Barack Obama’s term, he and his aides faced a rite of passage familiar to every White House for the past 40 years: What to do about Woodward? In Obama’s case, the answer came quickly: The White House doors swung wide for the world’s most successful non-fiction writer. Once inside, the author was treated to a buffet of access to bold-faced names—Biden, Clinton, Gates, Panetta—topped off with a sit-down with Obama himself. “Obama’s Wars,” Bob Woodward’s 16th book—the previous 15 have all been best-sellers and often dominated the news upon release—comes out Monday. Administration officials believe, but so far...

President Obama urgently looked for a way out of the war in Afghanistan last year, repeatedly pressing his top military advisers for an exit plan that they never gave him, according to secret meeting notes and documents cited in a new book by journalist Bob Woodward. Frustrated with his military commanders for consistently offering only options that required significantly more troops, Obama finally crafted his own strategy, dictating a classified six-page "terms sheet" that sought to limit U.S. involvement, Woodward reports in "Obama's Wars," to be released on Monday. According to Woodward's meeting-by-meeting, memo-by-memo account of the 2009 Afghan strategy...

Wow, this is worse than I imagined. Bob Woodward, in his classic way of infiltrating a White House, has done so in his most recent book, Obama's Wars. The chaos from this book is frightening. There is no goal in mind. There is no end game. There is simply academic discussions that are never ending.

Bob Woodward’s new book Obama’s Wars includes a new revelation about the president’s outlook on domestic terrorism — and some aren’t too happy about it. As the Washington Post reports today, the president sat down with Woodward in July and discussed his views on another terrorist attack in the U.S.: Woodward’s book portrays Obama and the White House as barraged by warnings about the threat of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and confronted with the difficulty in preventing them. During an interview with Woodward in July, the president said: “We can absorb a terrorist attack. We’ll do everything we can...