Summary

Chapter Sixteen: At War with the Truth begins by hagiographically recounting CIA director Leon Panetta’s experience learning of the assassination of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Obama soon after appoints Panetta as Secretary of Defense, a role in which he oversees the reduction of US troops in Afghanistan from the high-water mark of 100,000. The assassination helps boost the president’s approval rating but does not have military on the situation in Afghanistan, where the al-Qaida network has already been thoroughly depleted and scattered. The Taliban’s resistance against US occupation intensifies during Panetta’s tenure as Secretary of Defense, but he glosses over this in a testimony given to congress on the military situation in Afghanistan. Taliban insurgents are increasingly able to raid Kabul, well outside of their powerbase in the Pashtun southeast. Panetta performs similar perception...