Book Says Bush Ignored Urgent Warning on Iraq

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 — The White House ignored an urgent warning in September 2003 from a top Iraq adviser who said that thousands of additional American troops were desperately needed to quell the insurgency there, according to a new book by Bob Woodward, the Washington Post reporter and author. The book describes a White House riven by dysfunction and division over the war.

The warning is described in “State of Denial,” scheduled for publication on Monday by Simon & Schuster. The book says President Bush’s top advisers were often at odds among themselves, and sometimes were barely on speaking terms, but shared a tendency to dismiss as too pessimistic assessments from American commanders and others about the situation in Iraq.

As late as November 2003, Mr. Bush is quoted as saying of the situation in Iraq: “I don’t want anyone in the cabinet to say it is an insurgency. I don’t think we are there yet.” Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is described as disengaged from the nuts-and-bolts of occupying and reconstructing Iraq — a task that was initially supposed to be under the direction of the Pentagon — and so hostile toward Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, that President Bush had to tell him to return her phone calls. The American commander for the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, is reported to have told visitors to his headquarters in Qatar in the fall of 2005 that “Rumsfeld doesn’t have any credibility anymore” to make a public case for the American strategy for victory in Iraq.

The book, bought by a reporter for The New York Times at retail price in advance of its official release, is the third that Mr. Woodward has written chronicling the inner debates in the White House after the Sept. 11 attacks, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the subsequent decision to invade Iraq. Like Mr. Woodward’s previous works, the book includes lengthy verbatim quotations from conversations and describes what senior officials are thinking at various times, without identifying the sources for the information.

Mr. Woodward writes that his book is based on “interviews with President Bush’s national security team, their deputies, and other senior and key players in the administration responsible for the military, the diplomacy, and the intelligence on Iraq.” Some of those interviewed, including Mr. Rumsfeld, are identified by name, but neither Mr. Bush nor Vice President Dick Cheney agreed to be interviewed, the book says.

Robert D. Blackwill, then the top Iraq adviser on the National Security Council, is said to have issued his warning about the need for more troops in a lengthy memorandum sent to Ms. Rice. The book says Mr. Blackwill’s memorandum concluded that more ground troops, perhaps as many as 40,000, were desperately needed.

It says that Mr. Blackwill and L. Paul Bremer III, then the top American official in Iraq, later briefed Ms. Rice and Stephen J. Hadley, her deputy, about the pressing need for more troops during a secure teleconference from Iraq. It says the White House did nothing in response. The book describes a deep fissure between Colin L. Powell, Mr. Bush’s first secretary of state, and Mr. Rumsfeld: When Mr. Powell was eased out after the 2004 elections, he told Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, that “if I go, Don should go,” referring to Mr. Rumsfeld. Mr. Card then made a concerted effort to oust Mr. Rumsfeld at the end of 2005, according to the book, but was overruled by President Bush, who feared that it would disrupt the coming Iraqi elections and operations at the Pentagon.

Vice President Cheney is described as a man so determined to find proof that his claim about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was accurate that, in the summer of 2003, his aides were calling the chief weapons inspector, David Kay, with specific satellite coordinates as the sites of possible caches. None resulted in any finds.

Two members of Mr. Bush’s inner circle, Mr. Powell and the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, are described as ambivalent about the decision to invade Iraq. When Mr. Powell assented, reluctantly, in January 2003, Mr. Bush told him in an Oval Office meeting that it was “time to put your war uniform on,” a reference to his many years in the Army.


READ MORE.........................(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/29/wa...=1&oref=slogin )

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I saw the Woodward interview with king. I knew this would be a good book.

Yes indeed and how timely, being right before an election and all.

Do you think Bush will read this book? Is it in big writing and have colorful pictures? You know, like that one he enjoyed so much while the World Trade Center was being attacked?

Now this is Woodward, right?
The guy who sensationalized Watergate.. and since then has written a series of books as if he were present at events THAT DID NOT HAPPEN..
( Belushi-"Wired"..Casey-"Unveiled"- GH Bush/Powell-"The Commanders")
every one of which is skilfully, but OBVIOUSLY slanted ina cynical and implicative manner.
He routinely makes "incident reports" of one remark and speaker,; then
leaps to another locale, time and context to introduce another irrelevant but vaguely insinuating quote..
I just skimmed a few pages last night, and the excerpts online..
.. The C-SPAN ( an obvious neocon source) also just had a LIVE presentation
of his discussion of the book release.. where the host termed him" the greatest political reporter"..
This is NOT a reporter with a high historical standard ( CBS writing comes to mind).. and the obvious politicking of the timing demands a high level of skepticism..
As usual, Woody really doesn't live up to his rep..

The talking heads of the leftist mainstream media were having orgasms over this Woodward book. One of them even had the supreme gall to claim Woodward is apolitical--that's just beyond ridiculous.

Presidents have advisors. Usually these are not merely "yes men". Indeed, Bush would be savaged even worse than he already is if he didn't have a few advisors expressing alternative opinions. That inevitably provides fuel for the opposition (what used to be called the LOYAL opposition as recently as five or so years ago) to rant about discord in the Whitehouse.

The FACTS about the war in Iraq are:

That we won the military phase of the war;

That pretty much every benchmark of the nation-building phase have been met--interim government, preliminary elections, a constitution, regular elections, gradual building of the Iraqi security forces and turning responsibility over to them;

That American war dead is STILL less than the 9/11 death toll, is about 1/20 of the Vietnam War total, is less than 1/200 of the World War II death toll;

That the only reason things have dragged on the way they have is that the terrorist enemy committed itself to preventing Iraq from becoming a shining example of freedom and representative democracy;

That because of that enemy commitment, we are mowing them down in significant numbers--4,000 al Qaeda alone killed by al Qaeda's own estimates, not even counting other varieties of enemy terrorists killed;

That we are batting a thousand against terrorist hits in America since 9/11 not in spite of, but BECAUSE we are fighting them "over there" instead of here;

The Dem/lib politicians and their media co-conspirators have broken the time honored American tradition of supporting the presidential policies in time of war and have adopted an America-hating stance. Why do I say America-hating instead of just Bush-hating?

Because many, maybe most of the American left actually hopes for and promotes with their statements and votes defeat of America on Bush's watch, slack cut to the enemy, and harm in general for America's interests.

excellent..
there were 16,000,000 Americans in uniform in WWII.. There were over
405,000 dead all over the world in scores of countries and many families never learned the truth of many tragedies. The whole economy was geared towards a war effort almost none of the American public knew ANYTHING about. The Press willingly accomodated their medium as part of the war effort. The traitorous or even vigorous dissenters
were given the cold shoulder
or worse. THIS war is different isn't it?

Like I said, who cares what Woodward has to say?

*yawn*

By the way RATSMAN, how many times are you going to post this thread with different titles?

Because something is touted in a book, it does not mean it is correct, but if, from reading what is in the book one can connect one's own memories of the events; it can be judged fairly well. The basic book is written to make a profit. If it at the same time can be used for making good judgements about an issue it is worth considering.

No book can or should be set aside off hand. Even if one disagrees with it initially, it may be a discovery of truth and or intent.

Usually if something is simply said in a book, without source information from more than one source, it can be critically considered. A writer can write convencingly, but have no substance for belief or persuasion.

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