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Title: Bush at War : Inside the Bush White House by Bob Woodward, James Naughton ISBN: 0-7435-2485-3 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 19 November, 2002 Format: Audio CD Volumes: 6 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (185 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Interesting
Comment: The book mainly focuses on the drama of 9/11 to the current war in Iraq. The start of the book describes the shocking 9/11 in depth, the way in which Woodward lays it out is very easy to read and is not a cluttered mess of information, but a very precise, interesting and emotional account on what happened.
Then the book takes us into the White House, the discussions and important meetings that were held. The biggest thing that struck me was the portrayal of Donald Rumsfeld, who according to 'Bush At War' pushed war on Iraq further than Bush had originally intended. Although it is never made clear whether or not Bush wanted a war against Iraq that badly, or if he just wanted to show US prescence in Iraq and Afghanistan by spreading the US military in an attempt to intimidate terrorists against America. Woodward clearly shows Bush as a good decision making President, and shows Bush's aims now that he is the President.
Woodward also tells us that after 9/11, war on Iraq was not a question, the focus was on Afghanistan and the Al-Quada, one interesting fact was that the Taliban were offered to turn over Osama Bin Laden's position and prevent any war.
The information on preparing for war is possibly the most intriguing part of the book, Woodward's revision is at full flight in this section as he describes the complex decision making involved in waging a war in the far East.
The book contains a lot of facts and nearly no opinions, it is easy to read in some places but has the tendency to over do facts and sources. All in all a very interesting book, shows another side to Bush many people don't see and deep information on the situation with the Al-Quada and Taliban.
Rating: 4
Summary: If You Favor Impeachment Over Iraq, Start Here....
Comment:
As America confronts the very real probability that the Administration manipulated and distorted and fabricated intelligence in order to go to war against Iraq, and as calls rise for the impeachment of the President and the Vice President (the one naive, the other conniving), this book takes on added value--Bob Woodward has done a superb job of documenting both the "keystone cops" nature of the Administration's "strategic deliberations", and the very specific manner in which Paul Wolfowitz (too controversial to be Secretary of Defense but a power in his own right) guided the Bush team toward a war on Iraq as a "solution" to problems they could not deal with directly, to wit, the war on terrorism.
There is an Alice in Wonderland quality to this book--or more properly stated, to the conversations that are quoted among the principals. Their wandering short-hand conversations, the degree to which the President is mis-led about our capabilities, the inability of the Secretary of Defense to answer a direct question, always having to go back to his office for an answer--the entire book is, as one reviewer suggests, practically a recount of a handful of recollections about scattered conversations, as if the center of the world were one room in the White House, and nothing outside those walls really mattered. It is also somewhat revisionist--as I recall from published news at the time, all of the principals wanted to delay the taking of Kabul until the spring, and it was President Putin of Russia, speaking directly to President Bush, who made the case, based on his superior intelligence sources on the ground, for how quickly Kabul would fall, leading to the US acceptance of rapid advances by the Afghan warlords. The absence of this essential and openly known fact casts doubt on the entire process of writing the book, and how information was researched and selected for inclusion.
There are, however, some major gems that make a careful reading of this book very worthwhile and I list them for consideration by other readers:
1) The Directorate of Intelligence does not appear as a listed player--CIA special operations rather than CIA analysis appears to have been the DCI's best card to play;
2) The clandestine service, as Dewey Claridge notes in concluding his "Spy for All Seasons," died in the 1990's, with only 12 case officers in one year's class--the book misrepresents the increase from 12 to 120 as stellar--it was actually a return to the norm before a series of mediocre leaders destroyed the Directorate of Operations;
3) The CIA had been "after" bin Laden for five years prior to 9-11, the DCI even "declaring war" on him, to zero effect. Worse, post 9-11 investigations determined that bin Laden had been planning the 9-11 attack for two years without any substantive hint being collected by U.S. intelligence--and at the end of the book, Rumsfeld reflects on how the three major surprises against the U.S. prior to 9-11 not only happened without U.S. intelligence detecting them, but we did not learn of them for five to thirteen years *after the fact* (page 320);
4) Presidential-level communications stink--the Secretary of State could not talk to the President when flying back for seven hours from Latin America, and the National Security Advisor could not get a reliable secure connection to the President from her car right in Washington, D.C.
5) The Secret Service idea of security for Presidential relatives in a time of crisis is to take them to the nearest Federal Center--the kind that got blown up in Oklahoma.
6) Throughout the discussions, it was clear to the principals that the U.S. military is designed to find and destroy fixed physical targets with obvious signatures; it cannot do--it is incompetent at--finding mobile targets, whether vehicles or individuals (cf. page 174)...and of course as General Clark documented in his book, and David Halberstam repeats in his most recent tome, and as the principals learned again vis a vis Afghanistan, the U.S. Army does not do mountains.
There are three remarkable aspects of this story, only one even remotely hinted at in the book: we failed to get bin Laden. The CIA went to Afghanistan with the right orders: "bin Laden dead or alive." They promptly forgot their orders and settled for spending $70M to play soldier. The two stories that are not told in this book, but are clearly apparent: 1) Russia saved the day, both for the CIA and for the Department of Defense; and 2) Saudi Arabia never came up as a serious problem that needed to be dealt with sooner than later.
Finally, and this only became clear to me after the early months of 2003 when the obsession of a few people in the Administration brought the world to a crisis over Iraq, the book provides really excellent documentation of how a tiny minority, led by Paul Wolfowitz, basically pushed the President to treat Iraq as an alternative to substantive action on global terrorists networks, and the book documents how the uniformed leadership of the Pentagon clearly opposed this line of thinking that is unsupported by intelligence, either on Iraq, or on the relative threat of Iraq (not imminent) in relation to many other threats that are both more imminent and more costly if not addressed now.
This is a useful book, worthy of reading, but the real story with all the details will not be known for some time. However, in the aftermath of the failed effort in Iraq, and the clear and compelling evidence that the American people and Congress were deceived about the Iraq threat, this book has an added luster, an added value, and become a "must read."
Rating: 4
Summary: The forgotten war...
Comment: Woodward is an international media legend. The cause of his world renown was, of course, unearthing the Watergate scandal, leading to the eventual resignation of a president. Because of his long tenure at the Washington Post and reputation as a 'pure' reporter, we expect great things from this man; at least reporting the facts in a bipartisan fashion. In Bush at War, he focuses on the Bush administrations response to 9/11 in the form of the invasion of Afghanistan, as many have deemed the "forgotten war". Woodward reveals an administration, at times, hysterically grasping at a way to attain some kind of retribution for 9/11. A war cabinet at odds with each other, all seeming to have their own agendas, and in the end, after Afghanistan was supposedly won; only a few al Qaeda terrorists were captured, (16 of the top 22 leaders were still at large, and the arch enemy, bin Laden, well hidden and laughing at us from his secret hideaway) though the oppressive Taliban was disbanded, ironically and sadly, Afghanistan still remains a potential haven for al Qaeda terrorists.
One should not include this text as just another 'Bush bashing' exercise, because the president is depicted as a passionate and determined leader, albeit inexperienced, hell-bent on bringing those responsible for 9'11 to justice. Woodward skilfully puts the reader in the shoes of the president, and we feel his anger, frustration and one-eyed goal for retribution. The president's cabinet, however, are depicted as mostly floundering during the crises, fighting with one another, vying for power, in the pursuit of their own particular goals. The vice president is a crafty fellow, a smiling political assassin, so to speak, while Rumsfield is depicted as your basic playground bully. There is a scene in the book where Rumsfield pokes his finger with force into Woodward's chest during an interview, pushing the reporter off balance - this action speaks worlds. As an administrator, Rumsfield is meticulous, arrogant and definitely not a team player, (my way or no way) and, to my mind, holds the majority of responsibility for the current mess in Afghanistan and the present "quagmire" situation we now have in Iraq. Technically, the buck stops with the president, though Rumsfield has a lot to answer for...
Although not emphatically stated, Bush at War begs the question: did Afghanistan accomplish anything in terms of combating terrorism? Is the world a safer place as a result of many lives lost and literarily millions of dollars spent on bribing the Afghani Northern Alliance? Well, the answer is in the results - and they speak for themselves.
Woodward's book is by no means a revelation about this administration. One has only to look out the window, turn on the television or open a newspaper, to see where this administration is leading us. However I recommend this text as a close as possible 'true' historical record of the Afghanistan 'incursion', and how the military machine operates in war conditions.
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Title: Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward ISBN: 074325547X Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 19 April, 2004 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
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Title: Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror by Richard A. Clarke ISBN: 0743260244 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 22 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
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Title: The Commanders by Bob Woodward ISBN: 0743234758 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill by Ron Suskind ISBN: 0743255453 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 13 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush by John W. Dean ISBN: 031600023X Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 06 April, 2004 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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