Craig Whitlock, The Washington Post investigative reporter and author of the new book The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War, was the featured guest on HBO's "Real Time" with Bill Maher on Friday.
"Your new Pentagon Papers book really has the same theme, which is that they lied to us," Maher said. "They presented a rosy picture in public for all these years and behind the scenes they knew it was unwinnable and they just weren't telling us."
"And this went from the beginning, really," Whitlock replied.
"There are memos we obtained from Donald Rumsfeld, who was [George W.] Bush's defense secretary. And in public, people were asking him, 'Is this going to be another Vietnam or are we going to get stuck in a quagmire?' And Rumsfeld would make fun of journalists who would ask this," he explained.
"Then in private, just six months into the war, he sends a memo to his military chiefs saying, 'If we don't get a plan to stabilize Afghanistan, our troops are going to get stuck there forever,'" he continued.
Rumsfeld ended the memo with "Help!"
Watch:
Whitlockwww.youtube.com
