White house counters former secretary's claims, defenses policies

 The White House on Wednesday came to the defense of both the President and Vice President a day after the New York Times published excerpts from former Defense Secretary Robert Gates' scathing new book, "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War." Gates wrote that President Barack Obama had little faith in the Afghan mission as well as its commanders, while Vice President Joe Biden had never been correct on a foreign policy issue. He also called out the current administration as the most "controlling" he'd ever witnessed and worked with."The President and the rest of us here simply just disagree with that assessment," said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney."The President has said many times that he greatly appreciates the advice and counsel the vice president gives him on matters both domestic and foreign, and that is absolutely the case." "The Vice President has a lot of experience," he added. "The Vice President has done a lot of work on a lot of very complex issues, including Afghanistan and Iraq, including a number of domestic policy issues ... that role includes expressing an opinion that isn't always agreed to by everybody in the room." On the Afghan mission, Carney noted, "When President Obama came into office we inherited a policy in Afghanistan that was in disarray." "There were some debates in the prolonged policy review over Afghanistan," he said. "That process led to a stronger, better policy for our troops and for our national security, because it was focused on what the original purpose of going to Afghanistan was about, which was holding responsible those who attacked the United States and killed Americans on September 11th, 2001, and assisting the new Afghan government and the Afghan Security Forces and helping build them up." However Carney stressed that Obama made a "stated commitment that he would not endorse a policy that foresaw war in Afghanistan without end." Asked about how the president feels toward Gates, who served in his cabinet from 2009 to 2011, Carney said Obama had in fact asked the Defense Secretary to stay in his role, but Gates chose to retire. "Anybody who has the privilege of serving in an administration at a high level and who participates in policy discussions and has confidential conversations with principals and presidents and then leaves offices makes a decision about how they're going to talk or write about that experience and when," explained Carney."That's everybody's decision to make for himself or herself," he said. "Secretary Gates provided service to this administration and to previous administrations, and the president's greatly appreciative of that."