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Book claims Obama dressed down Pentagon brass

NEW YORK — President Barack Obama reprimanded top Pentagon officials last year for pressing publicly for a troop increase in Afghanistan.

That’s according to “The Promise,” a book on Obama’s first year in office by Newsweek writer Jonathan Alter, which goes on sale May 19.

The book says Obama laid into Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen in an Oval Office meeting in October.

Obama was irked by the leak of a confidential report by Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, calling for an expanded military presence there, and by McChrystal saying he could not support a strategy relying on special forces and unmanned drone attacks.

Obama was conducting a lengthy review of operations in Afghanistan at the time. He largely sided with the generals and agreed to deploy 30,000 more troops.