The military has suffered under President Obama, according to all three of his former Pentagon leaders, because of problems ranging from “micromanagement” to “35-year-old PhDs who love to talk.”
“It was the operational micromanagement that drove me nuts, of White House and [National Security Council] staffers calling senior commanders out in the field and asking them questions, of second guessing commanders,” former Defense Secretary Robert Gates tells host Bret Baier in a new Fox News special titled “Rising Threats, Shrinking Military.”
“I told my combatant commanders and field commanders … if you get calls from … the president, that’s one thing,” Gates said in the video, posted Wednesday night. “But if you get a call from some White House or National Security Council staffer, you tell them to call me instead, and then tell them, by the way, go to hell … directly from the secretary of defense.”
President George W. Bush tapped Gates to lead the department in 2006. He remained in the position for two years after Obama took office, and was replaced by Leon Panetta in 2011.
In spite of being a Democrat who served in several positions under President Clinton, including as White House chief of staff, Panetta was just as pessimistic. “I think what I’ve seen in these last four years is almost this cautiousness and overcorrection, which makes it appear that the United States is hesitant to take action,” Panetta said. “That sends, I think, a message of weakness.”
Panetta, like Gates, identified the most serious problem as overbearing NSC staff. “The National Security Council has grown enormously, which means you have a lot more staff people running around at the White House on these foreign policy issues,” he said. “And very frankly, proximity is everything when you’re operating at the White House.”
Panetta’s successor, former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, described the situation in the bluntest terms.
“There were always too many meetings, too many people in the room, too many people talking,” Hagel said. “Especially young, smart 35-year-old PhDs who love to talk, because that’s the way you let everybody know how smart you are, is how much you talk.”
Hagel even went beyond talking about the military, saying the problems were spread throughout Obama administration. “President Obama, he’s one of the youngest presidents we’ve ever had, one of the most inexperienced presidents we’ve ever had. He has a staff around him that’s very inexperienced. I don’t think there’s one veteran on his senior staff at the White House. I don’t believe there’s one business person. I don’t believe there’s one person who’s ever run anything. Other than Vice President Biden, none of them have ever been elected to anything,” Hagel said.
Gates said it was that team that was trying to micromanage commanders in the field. “I think this was particularly true in Afghanistan, and I think there were people in the White House who were constantly goading him and saying, the military is trying to box you in, the military is trying to trap you, the military is trying to bully you, the military is trying to make you do something you don’t want to do,” Gates said.
“He and I would talk about this a lot. And I would, in private, tell him, you know, as president, they really are truly loyal to you. They’re giving you their best professional military advice. They’re not trying to trick you or box you in. But there were clearly a number of people at the White House who believed that,” he added.
Current Defense Secretary Ash Carter is Obama’s fourth since taking office, in contrast with just two, Gates and Donald Rumsfeld, who held the position under Bush. Several people turned down the job before it was offered to Carter.
