During the meetings he skipped out on to play golf?
Via WFB:
Top government officials and military brass repeatedly warned of the consequences of sticking to a timetable on full Iraq War troop withdrawal, but President Obama proceeded with the plan in 2011.
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker cautioned against such a move in the years beforehand.
“I am certain that abandoning or drastically curtailing our efforts will bring failure,” he said in 2007. “An Iraq that falls into chaos or civil war will mean massive human suffering, well beyond what has already occurred within Iraq’s borders.”
He told PBS later that he and Gen. David Petraeus refused to talk about timetables during that time.
“To set an arbitrary timeline is just telling the enemy how long he has to wait,” he said.
Adm. Michael Mullen said the consequences of setting a timeline could be “very dangerous” in a Fox News Sunday interview in 2008, and retired Gen. Jack Keane said in 2011 that the Obama administration was “taking steps towards losing this peace” in Iraq with full withdrawal of troops.
“When we walk away at the end of conflicts, it has a tendency not to work,” he said.