Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates clarified that he "absolutely believed" President Barack Obama supported the military surge in Afghanistan, despite news reports that Gates claimed the opposite in his new book. Gates said on NBC's "Today" show Monday that Obama fully supported the November 2009 surge but began to have reservations the following spring. “So it was in our private conversations that he would express these reservations about whether it was working," Gates explained. "But the decisions were right, and I believe that he believed it would work." Gates added that his new memoir "has sort of been hijacked by people along the political spectrum to serve their own purposes, taking quotes out of context.”
