Chronicles From Crazytown

The Washington Post investigative reporter Bob Woodward exposed Richard Nixon, the only US president to have resigned. The Watergate scoop made Woodward a star, and changed political reporting forever. After Watergate, he wrote on several presidencies and on the Supreme Court, the CIA and the Federal Reserve. His latest book, Fear, is on Donald Trump, which paints an unflattering picture of the US president, entangled in a web of lies, deceits and tantrums.

THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL gathered in the Situation Room at 10:00 the next morning, July 19, to brief Trump on the Afghanistan and Pakistan strategy.

[National Security Adviser, H.R.] McMaster spent the initial part of the meeting identifying objectives and framing issues for discussion. Trump looked bored and seemed disengaged. After about five minutes, he interrupted. “I’ve been hearing about this nonsense about Afghanistan for 17 years with no success,” he said before McMaster had finished laying out the issues. We’ve got a bunch of inconsistent, short-term strategies. We can’t continue with the same old strategy.

He brought up his meeting with the troops the previous day. The best information I’ve gotten was from a couple of those line soldiers, not the generals, he said. “I don’t care about you guys,” he told [Defence Secretary James] Mattis, [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of StaffJoseph] Dunford and McMaster.

We’re losing big in Afghanistan. It’s a disaster. Our allies aren’t helping. Ghost soldiers—those paid but not serving—are ripping us off.

NATO is a disaster and a waste, he said. The soldiers had told him that NATO staff were totally dysfunctional.

“Pakistan isn’t helping us. They’re not really a friend,” despite the $1.3 billion a year in aid the US gave them. He said he refused to send any additional aid.

The Afghan leaders were corrupt and making money off of the United States, he insisted. The poppy fields, largely in Taliban territory, are out of control.

“The soldiers on the ground could run things much better than you,” the president told his generals and advisers. “They could do a much better job. I don’t know what the hell we’re doing.”

It was a 25-minute dressing-down of the generals and senior officials.