State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III
by Bob Woodward
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Book Summary Information
Author: Bob WoodwardEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2007-09-03
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 576
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Book Reviews of State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III
Book Review: A Journalistic Indictment of George W. Bush's War in Iraq
Summary: 4 Stars
At best, Bob's Woodward latest expose out of Washington, STATE OF DENIAL, is a political indictment of the administration of President George W. Bush and its conduct of the war in Iraq. At worst, the narration of the book recalls the era of Lyndon Johnson and his blunders in the Vietnam War.
The book is the third volume that Woodward has written about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The first two books, published when those wars were going well, were reasonably complimentary to George W. Bush. The latest volume, however, is a scathing critique of Bush and his oversight of the war in Iraq. According to Woodward, Bush lost control of the war due to infighting among his senior lieutenants, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and National Security adviser (and later Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice.
As Woodward relates it, the bureaucratic infighting between Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice (and to a lesser extent Colin Powell when he was secretary of state) has stymied the American incursion into Iraq to the point where victory may be politically impossible. Woodward's narration of events in Iraq (and Washington) can only be characterized as pathetic - if it weren't for the loss of American and Iraqi lives involved. In fact, if true (and there are legitimate questions to be asked about Woodward's narration), the events of the last three years can only be characterized as a tragic lapse of national leadership - and possibly a criminal mis-use of the so-called American power in international affairs.
Woodward's final conclusion, on the final page of the book, talks about how the Bush Administration viewed the mid-term elections on Nov. 7, 2006. He quotes Stephen Hadley, Bush's national security adviser as saying:
"I've got to help this president get through what is going to be a really rugged three years. And if the Democrats take over the House and the Senate it's going to be unbelievable after 2006." Woodward then concludes:
"The president's national security adviser understandably wants to win the 2006 Congressional elections. Having the president answer questions about Iraq was conspicuously inconsistent with that goal. The strategy was denial. With all Bush's upbeat talk and optimism, he had not told the American public the truth about what Ira had become."
That's a very good question: what has Iraq become?
For one thing, it became a domestic political liability.. Payback time for the Democrats came last week (Nov. 7, 2006) when Bush and the Republicans lost control of both houses of Congress. The mid-term election turned out to be a referendum on Iraq, and President Bush lost it hands down. Indeed, the results of the 2006 election recall the presidential election in 1968 when Hubert Humphery had to carry Lyndon Johnson's baggage through to the American people. They weren't buying it.
But that's an easy observation to make, and it is, in fact, a simplistic conclusion. Readers of Woodward's book should be forewarned that the story he relates is a complex one, involving the dynamics of issues like terrorism, Islamic extremism, conflicting (and competing) interests of the major international powers (principally France and Russia) and, of course, domestic American politics. Woodward even cites the legacy of Vietnam as a factor. These all represent legitimate issues, and arguments can be made, pro and con, on the advisability of the American intervention into Iraq.
In State of Denial,, Woodward presents a stark account of how the Bush Administration bungled the job. That bungling began when for some reason (that is unexplained by Woodward), Bush sent Paul Bremer to relieve Jay Garner as his emissary in Iraq. Garner, a retired Army General Garner had plans to use Saddam Hussein's Army to maintain law and order in Iraq until a popularly elected government could be installed.
But on the day of his arrival in Baghdad, Bremer issued "Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 1 - De-Baathification of Iraqi Society" to the total surprise of Garner. Garner tried to get Bremer to retract the order, going all the way to Rumsfeld at one point. Rumsfeld told Garner "This is not coming from this building. That came from somewhere else." Where? Woodward never did track down the origin of that order, as he should have, because that single act created tens of thousands of disaffected Iraqis - many of whom no doubt became insurgents against the American effort to instill democracy in Iraq.
There is a hint of the origin of the de-Baathification order: Woodward notes that Bremer, a protégé of Henry Kissinger, was recruited by Scooter Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, and neo-conservative Paul Wolfowitz. Indeed, one of the intriguing tidbits in Woodward's book is that fact that Kissinger visited Washington regularly (nearly monthly) in those years to advise Cheney and Bush.
A second shortcoming that Woodward identifies in Bush's leadership involves the intense infighting among his immediate lieutenants, principally Rumseld, Rice and Powell. The conduct of all three cabinet secretaries was, essentially, childish. In Bush's first term, Powell and Rumsfeld rarely spoke to each other. In the second term, with Powell gone, Rice and Rumsfeld were not on speaking terms. Indeed, at one point, Bush had to order Rumsfeld to return Rice's telephone calls. That behavior is inexcusable, especially in a time of war when thousands of Iraqi and American lives were lost.
As Woodward describes him, Bush was a strong but detached president, one who delegated authority -- probably to a fault. The president appears to put his trust in his lieutenants, when he probably should have been more skeptical about their abilities. Certainly, he should have insured that the authority he dispensed was properly used.
There were legitimate differences of opinions, of course. Rice, for example, railed at Rumsfeld for not maintaining security in Baghdad and other parts of the country. Rumsfeld took the position, that once the Iraqi Army and Police Forces were trained, it was up to the Iraqis to provide their own security. After all, Rumsfeld argued, if the Iraqis weren't interested in maintaining stability, why should Americans risk their lives keeping Iraqis safe?
Colin Powell, meanwhile, took a walk. Some would argue that the failure of the Bush policy could be directly related to Powell's poor performance. It was the secretary of state, after all, who developed the Powell doctrine which stipulated that American military intervention should be massive and swift in order to achieve any given military objective (ironically, the Powell Doctrine was a direct result of his experience in Vietnam). The initial foray into Iraq was indeed massive and swift, but the aftermath was desultory, at best. Where was Powell when the intervention got bogged down? He was gone (giving speeches at $150,000 a clip). Powell should have stayed on and fought the good fight with Rumsfeld over the ultimate direction and conduct of the war.
Now the Democrats were in control of Congress (this review, incidentally, was originally written before the surge). And while they said that their goal was to pull troops out of Iraq, they offer no rational plan to do so. An abrupt pullout could mean that Iraq will descend into a Civil War: hundreds of thousands of Iraqis could be killed, and much of the country will fall under control of extremists, ranging from the mullahs in Iran to the Islamic extremists that make up Al Qaeda.
Does that sound familiar? It ought to. That was, after all, what happened to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos where the North Vietnamese, the Khmer Rouge and the Pathet Lao took control. If something similar happens in Iraq (and the rest of the Middle East), the United States will, once again, have proved itself to be a false prophet. If that happens, it will be shameful, but we will have no one to blame but ourselves.
Summary of State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III
Bob Woodward's third # 1 New York Times bestseller on President George W. Bush's wars tells the detailed, behind-the-scenes story of how the Bush administration failed to tell the truth about the Iraq War.Presidents & Heads of State Books
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