Obama blames SecDef Gates for shortchanging troops.

In Obama's widely panned Tuesday Night Speech, he made what appears to be a blatantly false claim:

Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive.
That’s why, shortly after taking office, I approved a long-standing request for more troops.

Former Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld called Obama out on this lie, saying that if there is ANY evidence that the White House received requests during his time in office, they should make it public.

Obama, knowing he was caught in a lie, came up with a scheme -- Gibbs, his spokesperson, came out and agreed with a reporter's assumption that Obama was talking about requests made in 2008.

See, in 2008, the Sec. of Defense was Robert Gates. And today, he is still Defense Secretary, which means he reports to, and is under the control of Obama.

Of course, in reality the 2008 troop requests did work through the system, and as troops became available some were retasked to Afghanistan. But after the election, the incoming adminsitration put a hold on the troops, and took almost 3 months before finally releasing half of the request (hence Obama's "approved a long-standing request" is also misleading since they were long-standing because he asked them to be put on hold).

Now we've operated almost a year, and nothing more has been done; except that Obama forced his generals to HOLD their requests so he could claim there was no "request on his desk".