From the Daily Beast:
The President’s White House staff was controlling, insular, and often ignored the advice of its senior national security officials, former Defense Secretary and CIA Director Leon Panetta charges in his yet-to-be-released memoir. The result, Panetta says: botched U.S. policies from Syria to Iraq to Afghanistan.
Panetta — whose new book, Worthy Choices, is set to be released Oct. 7 — is particularly tough on his former boss on the issue of Syria. (A copy of the book was obtained by The Daily Beast.) President Obama had called the use of chemical weapons there a “red line.” So when the Syrian military used chemical weapons in August 2013 to kill an estimated 1,400 people, Obama decided to strike. But then the President abruptly reversed himself — without consulting his national security Cabinet members.
Read the rest of the article here.