Free Republic

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...