I soon learned that the only way I could get significant new or additional equipment to commanders in the field in weeks or months, not years, was to take control of the problem myself through special task forces and ad hoc processes.
Gates emphasizes the need for direct control to expedite military equipment delivery.
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we've lost our ability to prioritize, to make hard decisions, to do tough analysis, to make trades.
As I sat there I thought, the president doesn't trust his commander, can't stand Karzai, doesn't believe it his own strategy and doesn't consider the war to be his. For him it's all about getting out.
The policymakers who will follow us . . . will not have the same historical, personal and, indeed, emotional ties to Europe, and may not consider the return on America's investment in Europe's defense worth the cost . . . and that will be…
An attack on Iran would make a nuclear-armed Iran inevitable. They would just bury the program deeper and make it more covert.
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