0 for him, it's all about getting out. mr. gates continued, president obama was skeptical if not outright convinced that his own strategy in afghanistan would fail. we have all the angles covered tonight. fox news senior political analyst begins our coverage. this is extraordinary, and charles kraut hammthammer said tonight, he believes of all the problems and incidents. this is number one. >> well, perhaps, megyn, certainly this is damning criticism of the president and his foreign policy, and of the behavior of those around him. it is not quite so rough on the previous president, president bush with whom secretary gates said he had more in common and whom he served long after most of the main foreign policy decisions had been made. and it is also extremely hard if not hardest of all on congress. so nobody comes out of this very well, and i might add, that i'm not sure secretary gates comes out of this all that well either. if he thought these things and felt them as strongly as he said he did, one wonders why he stayed as long as he did. >> let's start with the criticism, it seems rather extraordinary to have a defense secretary go after the commander in chief in this way, although he also praises president obama, and talks about his decision to go after bin laden as one of the most courageous decisions he's ever seen. it wasn't like it was a big long piece on the president, but nonetheless, he had criticisms of the president, and he talks, for example, about how he does not believe the white house can be trusted necessarily, that he believes as he put it, i felt agreements with the obama white house were good for only as long as they were politically convenient. and then he goes on to talk about the tone between the president, the commander in chief and his military commander saying, all too early in the obama administration suspicion and distrust of military officers by senior white house officials, including the president and vice president became a big problem for me. he goes on, senior white house officials engaged in aggressive, suspicious and sometimes condescending and insulting questioning of our military leaders. and he tacks about how unhappy he was in the job as a result of that relationship in part. >> i -- you know, i think some of us who observe this administration are not all together astonished to hear these things. we're somewhat surprised to hear them in this form from this man, but this sort of attitude toward the military has not been entirely uncommon among democrats and among democratic presidents. one remembers the behavior toward some in the military in the clinton administration, where this was -- this kind of thing happened. bob gates makes a strong case about it, though, and he also makes a strong case that this was an administration -- while he says he doesn't believe that politics was decisive, in any of the foreign policy and national security decisions that were made, he certainly makes no secret of the fact that they played a role. >> i think that's what charles was referring to, he's talking about how, president obama may have been outright convinced, he was skeptical if not outright convinced that his own strategy in afghanistan would fail. that he didn't believe in his own strategy. i mean, that's an extraordinary thing to say about the commander in chief who's sending men and women into battle to die, and they did die saying he didn't believe in the cause, he didn't believe in what he was doing, he knew they would fail. >> he is one of -- whether they would fail or not, the fact is, they really didn't fail, the forces in afghanistan have had a real effect there. the question now is whether it will be enough, in light of the fact that it came of -- the surge of forces came with an announcement when it would all be over at least on our part, you'll recall, megyn, if you go these charges from secretary gates come at the same time that al qaeda flags are flying over the city of fallujah. in the an bar province, thousands of troops sacrificed their lives. many thought it was in vein to begin with, many others did not believe that, and went over to fight honestly and heroically. 4489 of our young men and women were killed. 32,000 more were wounded and they and their families have to watch in frustration, as al qaeda takes these cities. representative duncan hunter fought in the battle of fallujah in '04, he's outraged by the al qaeda takeover that threatens to undo what he and his fellow marines accomplished in 2011. let me start with you representative hunter on where i left off with brit on the gates -- mr. gates matter, and i i know a lot of veterans who fought in iraq are wandering tonight, because it's been reported now what are we fighting for, what did we lose our comrades for if now we leave and al qaeda -- al qaeda is flying a flag atop these cities. on the other hand, the american people wanted to get out of iraq by large numbers when president obama took over, and he got us out of iraq, and so -- we're not necessarily talking about sending people back into iraq now, but the question is whether we withdrew too early and in the right way, i mean, a lot of americans out there watching this tonight say maybe it wasn't perfect, but we got out. >> we won in iraq, my dad wrote a book called victory in iraq, my dad was congressman too, and chairman of the armed services committee. he wrote a book called victory in iraq, how america won the war. we had won the war by 2010, this president left for purely political reasons, if we had left 10,000 or 20,000 troops we appreciate it. >> thank you. the national security council has responded in part to the reports about secretary gates and his new book, making these allegations about the president's strategy as our commander in chief. in part, they said that he appreciates, deeply appreciates bob gates' service, that there have been -- deliberations of our policy have been widely reported on over the years, it's well known the president has been committed to achieving the commission there, the president welcomes differences of abuse among his national security team. he wishes secretary gates well as he recovers from a recent injury and discusses his book. he did push back on secretary gates' assessment, which was very unflattering of joe biden, the nsc saying joe biden has been one of the leading states men of his time. we'll get into this a little more, because there was a startling piece about hillary clinton and barack obama having a discussion. we'll talk about that a little bit later in the show. also up next, chris styerwaltz is here, we'll ask him about the suggestions the president admitted a major failure. plus -- >> new details into why police and fbi have posted a nationwide warning about a killer on the loose. >> the action is very deliberate, very calculated and violent. this person could not -- >> did you see this, from dennis rodman? >> what do you think? let me do this? really? really? >> we'll show you the meltdown that has the white house running for cover. lk for heartburn? yeah... try new alka seltzer fruit chews. they work fast on heartburn and taste awesome. these are good. told ya! i'm feeling better already. 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