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From the Fact Check Desk: Did McKiernan’s Troop Requests Just Sit on Bush White House Desks?
October 22, 2009 7:50 PM
Jake Tapper and Luis Martinez report:
Responding to Vice President Cheney’s accusation that President Obama is “dithering” by taking time to assess a new strategy in Afghanistan, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs earlier today said “the vice president was for seven years not focused on Afghanistan. Even more curious given the fact that an increase in troops sat on desks in this White House, including the vice president's, for more than eight months, a resource request filled by President Obama in March.”
Is that accurate?
It’s a bit more nuanced than that.
The troop requests to which Gibbs referred were made by then-Gen. David McKiernan. McKiernan started off making individual requests for brigades, and that list kept growing.
Officials from that time say that demands in Iraq prevented the Bush administration from fulfilling the requests until just before Bush left office. (Prioritizing troops to Iraq over those to Afghanistan is, of course, a choice.)
In his first interview after being fired by Defense Secretary Gates over the summer, McKiernan told the Washington Post about his appointment to command ISAF troops in Afghanistan in June 2008: "There was a saying when I got there: If you're in Iraq and you need something, you ask for it. If you're in Afghanistan and you need it, you figure out how to do without it."
In retrospect McKiernan’s troop requests ultimately added up to roughly 30,000 more troops, a combination of combat units and support troops.
Throughout most of 2008, the Bush administration tried to get NATO countries to fill that gap, though they had to have known that would be a challenge. By the late summer, 2008 Bush administration officials realized NATO wasn’t going to come through.
In September 2008 that led the Pentagon to order 2,000 Marines to replace Marines sent to Afghanistan in January as a one-time deployment. At the same time, it also ordered in the first of the additional four combat brigades that McKiernan had requested. This unit of 3,700 soldiers would arrive in January, 2009 and had been originally scheduled to deploy to Iraq.
In December 2008, President Bush sent 2,800 troops to Afghanistan from an aviation brigade that McKiernan had also requested.
So as McKiernan’s outstanding requests for more forces accumulated throughout 2008 to roughly 30,000 soldiers, President Bush sent at least 6,800 troops – months and months after the requests had come in.
By March, President Obama had ordered 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan – which can be seen as roughly the outstanding balance of McKiernan’s original request.
So Gibbs’s claim that for “eight months” McKiernan’s request for troops “sat on desks” isn’t accurate.
But those request weren’t exactly being met with the urgency Cheney has suddenly decided President Obama must meet, lest he be seen as “dithering.”
-- Jake Tapper and Luis Martinez
October 22, 2009 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (172)
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How is it whining to highlight Cheney is a hypocrite?
And Faux News is not really a news organization but a policy spewing arm of the far right. It is is one thing to criticize our government, journalists should do that, based on facts. But news organizations do not try to organize people against the government as Fox News has repeatedly. That is acting as a political organization.
Posted by: Lydia | Oct 24, 2009 12:47:14 AM
Lather rinse repeat, Tom. Talk about the "same old tired and whiney crap." See Olivia's post from last night: Posted by: Olivia | Oct 23, 2009 1:40:57 AM
She added education reform (see David Brook's oped in NYT today.)
Posted by: GwenTenn | Oct 23, 2009 11:47:09 PM
Only fools like Bush/Cheney rush in without obtaining all of the pertinent facts. They rushed us into the Iraqi war from which Iraq and this country will probably never recover. Obama should take the time to make sure that Afghanistan has a stable government in place before sending anymore of our troops there.
Posted by: johnnylee | Oct 23, 2009 5:29:49 PM
"Interesting to note today’s daily job approval changes:
Approve: up 2 points at Rasmussen, up 3 points at Gallup.
Disapprove: down 3 points at Rasmussen, down 2 points at Gallup."
_______________________________________
Interesting, and that guy on here who is always pushing Rasmussen's polls hasn't mentioned this?
I guess it's clear he's just pushing his own personal political agenda regardless of the facts.
Posted by: julieterra | Oct 23, 2009 3:31:14 PM
Oops, I just noticed the Rasmussen Disapproval rate is down 2 points, not 3. Thought I'd better correct my mistake before "that guy" jumps all over it.
Posted by: Numeros | Oct 23, 2009 5:12:03 PM
Is that it libs? The same old tired and whiney blame Bush crap? Please, tell me you can do better...You could easily win the argument by citing Obama's leadership and accomplishments, so go ahead and lay it on me.......crickets chirping......nuff said!
Checkmate!
Posted by: Tom | Oct 23, 2009 5:03:11 PM
Posted by: gee | Oct 23, 2009 4:36:14 PM
Whatever Cheney says now, if you do even a shred of research you won't exactly get the sense that the Bushies were grabbing the bull by the horns on Afghanistan. Period. You might want to read the statement from National Security Network Senior Adviser Gen. Paul Eaton (Ret.), who served more than 30 years in the United States Army and from 2003-2004 oversaw the training of the Iraqi military. It's been posted on a couple threads here and you can google it. In fact, see julieterra's post at {Posted by: julieterra | Oct 23, 2009 2:01:28 PM}
Personally, I think Gibbs was spot on.
And just for the record, nobody's freedom of speech has been jeopardized. Nobody has been censored. Somehow I doubt you're from a communist country as you claim. It seems like it's just part of a schtick. Truth of the matter is because of freedom of speech, we all have the right to use our filters and common sense, and label Faux News as we see fit. I see it as propaganda and total crapola. It makes me feel good that the admin hasn't been duped into thinking that FNC has integrity or balance or truth on its side. It's a bent news organization. Nobody has tried to stop them from doing their bent thing, and it's not like smart people didn't already think Fox News fans were gullible and less intelligent than, say, Jon Stewart or Colbert Report fans.
Posted by: GwenTenn | Oct 23, 2009 4:59:22 PM
Leadership is taking charge and dealing with the hand you're dealt...not whining about it. Imagine if President Lincoln would have sat around and cried about inheriting slavery rather than leading the country out of it...Obama is a complete joke, Cheney farts more leadership than Obama will ever have. God help us!
Posted by: Tom | Oct 23, 2009 4:48:29 PM
I admire JAKE TAPPER !
Long live FREEDOM OF SPEECH !
Posted by: gee | Oct 23, 2009 4:38:36 PM
I am a DEM but I do believe the OBAMA WH lied on this issue. The former ADM laid out the plan for the then candidate OBAMA and HE AGREED ON THE PLAN, BUT ASKING THE BUSH AD. NOT TO SPEAK OUT.
Now they acted like they didn't know anything about the AFH. WAR. No, Obama should act like a president, not like a dirty chicago politican who played dirty tricks.
After 20 years of support of the DEM PARTY, I swiched to INDEPENDENT. I disagree with the OBAMA POLICIES a lot. This is not a race issue, it is disagreement on policies. (I am minority immigrant from a communist country 25 years ago where we had no FREEDOM OF SPEECH and it was horrible when you lost it !!!)
Posted by: gee | Oct 23, 2009 4:36:14 PM
Neo-cons shrilly decry Obama's "blaming" Bush-Cheney for our problems. Fine, but under their standard the responsiblity for 9/11 falls squarely in their lap..not Bill Clinton's.
Posted by: B. Bear | Oct 23, 2009 4:15:36 PM
"Interesting to note today’s daily job approval changes:
Approve: up 2 points at Rasmussen, up 3 points at Gallup.
Disapprove: down 3 points at Rasmussen, down 2 points at Gallup."
_______________________________________
Interesting, and that guy on here who is always pushing Rasmussen's polls hasn't mentioned this?
I guess it's clear he's just pushing his own personal political agenda regardless of the facts.
Posted by: julieterra | Oct 23, 2009 3:31:14 PM
WHY ARE YOU STILL ON THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION? FOR GOD SAKES ITS ALMOST A YEAR. WHEN CAN THEY LET GO. CHRIS WALLACE (FOX NEWS) THEY ARE THE BIGGEST WHINERS WE HAVE EVER SEEN IN THE WHITE HOUSE. AND THE MSM PLAYS ALONG
Posted by: karen | Oct 23, 2009 3:14:47 PM
Interesting to note today’s daily job approval changes:
Approve: up 2 points at Rasmussen, up 3 points at Gallup.
Disapprove: down 3 points at Rasmussen, down 2 points at Gallup.
Did Cheney’s “dithering” comments end up backfiring on him? Who knows, but it’s food for thought.
Posted by: Numeros | Oct 23, 2009 3:14:41 PM
Posted by: mjishernameo | Oct 23, 2009 3:04:00 PM
The White House is not acting like a child, it's defending itself against the hack partisan political attacks from the last (shamed) Vice-President.
Retired General Paul Eaton, senior adviser to the National Security Network:
"The record is clear: ex-VP Cheney and the Bush administration were incompetent war fighters. They ignored Afghanistan for 7 years with a crude approach to counter-insurgency warfare best illustrated by: 1. Deny it. 2. Ignore it. 3. Bomb it. While our intelligence agencies called the region the greatest threat to America, the Bush White House under-resourced our military efforts, shifted attention to Iraq, and failed to bring to justice the masterminds of September 11.
"The only time Cheney and his cabal of foreign policy 'experts' have anything to say is when they feel compelled to protect this failed legacy. While President Obama is tasked with cleaning up the considerable mess they left behind, they continue to defend torture or rewrite a legacy of indifference on Afghanistan. Simply put, Mr. Cheney sees history throughout extremely myopic and partisan eyes."
Posted by: julieterra | Oct 23, 2009 3:06:58 PM
Obama is like a 5 year old with his "but he did it first" response to EVERYTHING....
Never takes ownership, constantly fibs..
I raised kids and I'm telling ya, this one would have been slapped and put in time out long ago.... sick of it..
Posted by: mjishernameo | Oct 23, 2009 3:04:00 PM
Thank you for cutting through the spin to report to us exactly what happened. Keep it up.
Now more than ever, we rely on you to give us an honest accounting of those who are in power.
(And, although I sent it other ways, I'll say it here: Thanks to your decision-makers for standing up/against Obama's attempt to censor Fox from the television pool for the Pay Czar segment yesterday. I fear it won't be the last important choice you folks have to make to preserve free discourse. All the best.)
Posted by: Carol | Oct 23, 2009 2:41:17 PM
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how the fact that Bush delayed troops to Afghanistan makes it okay for Obama to delay. Wasn't Obama very critical of they way Bush failed to prosecute the war in Afghanistan during the campaign? Didn't Oama say Afghanistan was the necessary war, and appoint McChrystal to take over and determine what needed to be done to win the war, and all the talk about how he was going to get in there and do what needed to be done in Afghanistan. Now, yes, he DITHERS, and more boys die because they are not getting the support they need. Either get the necessary troops over there to win this thing, or get the heck out of there! Stop wasting lives!
Posted by: mbs | Oct 23, 2009 2:40:47 PM
The White House is not 'whining', it's defending itself against the partisan political attacks from the last (shamed)Vice-President.
Retired General Paul Eaton, senior adviser to the National Security Network:
"The record is clear: ex-VP Cheney and the Bush administration were incompetent war fighters. They ignored Afghanistan for 7 years with a crude approach to counter-insurgency warfare best illustrated by: 1. Deny it. 2. Ignore it. 3. Bomb it. While our intelligence agencies called the region the greatest threat to America, the Bush White House under-resourced our military efforts, shifted attention to Iraq, and failed to bring to justice the masterminds of September 11.
"The only time Cheney and his cabal of foreign policy 'experts' have anything to say is when they feel compelled to protect this failed legacy. While President Obama is tasked with cleaning up the considerable mess they left behind, they continue to defend torture or rewrite a legacy of indifference on Afghanistan. Simply put, Mr. Cheney sees history throughout extremely myopic and partisan eyes."
Posted by: julieterra | Oct 23, 2009 2:01:28 PM
SNL used to do a skit called "Doug and Wendy Whiner." It appears that those characters have gone to work for the Obama Administration.
Posted by: Steve | Oct 23, 2009 1:51:32 PM
Presidential Job Approval
54/39 Gallup
49/50 Rasmussen Reports
50/46 USA Today/Gallup
55/43 CNN/Opinion Research
57/40 ABC News/Wash Post
49/45 FOX News
53/41 Marist
52.4%/43.4% RCP Average*
*Don’t be fooled by imitators. This is the most current REAL RealClearPolitics Obama Job Approval average.
Posted by: Numeros | Oct 23, 2009 1:42:22 PM
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