Obama Foreign Policy Meetings Frustrate Lawmakers

A White House push to improve President Barack Obama's credibility on foreign policy doesn't appear to be working.

Administration leaders held private meetings with lawmakers last week, trying to sooth their concerns over Syria, Nigeria, Afghanistan, and defense spending.

But some lawmakers were unimpressed.

Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, described one of those foreign policy meetings as "one of the most bizarre I've attended."

Another lawmaker said White House advisers refused to answer basic questions, like whether America will leave any troops in Afghanistan after the war.

There were also unanswered questions about the Pentagon's efforts to find the nearly 300 school girls kidnapped in Nigeria.

The meetings frustrated some lawmakers and prompted them to leave before the meetings finished.

The news comes as the president prepares to deliver a speech next Wednesday at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, where he's expected to try to answer critics of his foreign policy work in the Middle East, Russia, China, and elsewhere.