The first of 10 "AFPAK" meetings cameon Sept. 13, when the president gathered 16 advisers in the Situation Room in the basement of the White House. This was to be the most methodical national-security decision in a generation. Deputy national-security adviser Tom Donilon had commissioned research that backed up an astonishing historical truth: neither the Vietnam War nor the Iraq War featured any key meetings where all the issues andssumptions were discussed by policymakers. In both cases the United States was sucked into war inch by inch.
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