“Gibbs’s claiming that this was actually done (or not) in ‘08 speaks poorly, then, to Obama’s choosing to retain SecDef. Gates, doesn’t it?”
An alternative way to view this is that Obama’s incoming SecDef already was well aware of the need for more troops from the day Obama was sworn in, yet it took until March for that to get “formalized” into a request to Obama, who then SAT ON THE REQUEST for 8 months (”dithering”) and only now has given the authorization to proceed.
Yet Obama claimed in his speech that his delay in no way affected when the first troops would arrive in Afghanistan (I’m still waiting for MSM to fact-check this implausible claim). If he can authorize these troops in December and get the first ones there by Jan., it’s pretty obvious that had he not dithered, a decision made in late Jan. of 2009 could have resulted in the extra troops being there by March!
Actually, Obama approved an additional 17,000 troops for Afghanistan in Feb, 2009. That request had been made in August, 2008 and Bush had not acted on it in the interim.
Let’s at least get the facts correct here. This is info which is readily available on the net and easily verified.
The fact that the request for additional troops went unanswered for 5 months is actually accurate.