A Heady Mix of Pride and Prejudice Led to War
April 19, 2004
BOOKS OF THE TIMES | 'PLAN OF ATTACK'
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
In his engrossing new book, "Plan of Attack," Bob Woodward
uses myriad details to chart the Bush administration's march to war against
Iraq. His often harrowing narrative not only illuminates the fateful
interplay of personality and policy among administration hawks and
doves, but it also underscores the role that fuzzy intelligence,
Pentagon timetables and aggressive ideas about military and foreign policy
had in creating momentum for war.
The chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., describes the
White House as trying to perform a circus trick of straddling two horses, the horse of war
and the horse of diplomacy. It is a task, this book shows,
that the White House did with difficulty and at times a good deal of
disingenuousness, with the horse of war rapidly outpacing the
horse of diplomacy. It is also a White House committed to the "vision thing" in
a big way (promoting risky, sweeping ideas like exporting democracy
and pre-emptive war) and the avoidance of any perception of wimpiness,
a White House in many ways determined to avoid accusations
once hurled at the president's father.
"Plan of Attack" reveals that President George W. Bush asked
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Nov. 21, 2001,
to start a war plan for Iraq, and to do so in secret because a leak
could trigger "enormous international angst and domestic speculation."
Among the first to express angst was Gen. Tommy Franks,
who got the Iraq assignment while he was busy prosecuting the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The book also reveals that the director of Central Intelligence,
George Tenet, told President Bush in December 2002 that intelligence about
Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction was "a slam dunk,"
but later told associates that he and the C.I.A. should have stated up front
in that fall's National Intelligence Estimate and other reports that
the evidence was not ironclad, that there was no smoking gun.
In addition "Plan of Attack" ratifies assertions made in two recent
controversial books. It corroborates the observation made by the former
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill (in Ron Suskind's book "The Price of Loyalty")
that Iraq was high on the Bush administration's agenda before
9/11, in fact from its very first days in office. And echoing accusations
made by the former counterterrorism czar Richard A. Clarke (in his
book "Against All Enemies"), it contends that prior to 9/11
Mr. Bush was focusing on domestic issues and a large tax cut
and had "largely ignored the terrorism problem."
In the wake of Mr. Woodward's best-selling 2002 book
"Bush at War" - which presented a laudatory portrait
of Mr. Bush as a fearless and determined leader after 9/11 - the president
agreed to be interviewed in depth by the author about how and why he decided to go to war
against Iraq. Mr. Woodward, an assistant managing editor of The Washington Post,
says the president also made it clear that he wanted
administration members to talk with him, and that he interviewed more than 75 key players.
Thanks to this wide access, "Plan of Attack" has a more choral-like
narrative than many of the author's earlier books, which tended to spin
scenes from the point of view of his most voluble sources. And while
Mr. Woodward - who has long specialized in forward-leaning narratives
that are long on details and scoops, and short on analysis - does not
delve into the intellectual and political roots of the war cabinet, he
does pause every now and then to put his subjects' actions and
statements into perspective. The resulting volume is his most powerful and
persuasive book in years.
In reporting that General Franks said in September 2002 that his
people had been "looking for Scud missiles and other weapons of mass
destruction for 10 years and haven't found any yet," Mr. Woodward adds:
"It could, and should, have been a warning that if the intelligence
was not good enough to make bombing decisions, it probably
was not good enough to make the broad assertion, in public or in formal
intelligence documents, that there was `no doubt' Saddam had WMD."
Vice President Dick Cheney had done exactly that just days before.
Later Mr. Woodward observes that Secretary of State Colin
Powell warned the president in January 2003 that military action against Iraq
would leave the United States responsible for rebuilding the country
and dealing with whatever global fallout the invasion might cause, but
adds that the president never asked his top diplomat for advice,
and that Mr. Powell never volunteered any. "Perhaps the president feared
the answer," Mr. Woodward writes. "Perhaps Powell feared giving it.
It would, after all, have been an opportunity to say he disagreed. But
they had not gotten to that core question, and Powell would not push."
In contrast Mr. Woodward describes Mr. Cheney as having
been a "powerful, steamrolling force" for military intervention, "a rock," in
President Bush's words, who was "steadfast and steady in his
view that Saddam was a threat to America and we had to deal with him." The
"self-appointed special examiner of worst-case scenarios,"
Mr. Cheney, who had been defense secretary during the first gulf war in 1991,
harbored "a deep sense of unfinished business about Iraq,"
Mr. Woodward writes, and in January 2001, before the inauguration, he passed
a message to the outgoing defense secretary, William S. Cohen,
stipulating that Topic A in Mr. Bush's foreign policy briefing should be Iraq.
During the buildup to war, this book contends, tensions between
Mr. Powell and Mr. Cheney grew so toxic that the two men "could not, and
did not, have a sit-down lunch or any discussion about their differences."
Mr. Powell is described as thinking that the vice president had an
unhealthy fixation on Saddam Hussein and was constantly straining
to draw (unproven) connections between Al Qaeda and Iraq. As Mr.
Woodward puts it: "Powell thought that Cheney took intelligence
and converted uncertainty and ambiguity into fact."
As for Mr. Cheney, he reportedly complains to hawkish
friends - at a dinner party he and his wife gave on April 13, 2003,
to celebrate the Marines' arrival in Baghdad - that Mr. Powell
"always had major reservations about what we were trying to do." He and his friends are
described as chuckling about the secretary of state, whom Mr. Cheney
characterizes as someone interested in his own poll ratings and
popularity.
President Bush, the object of so much jockeying for position among
cabinet members, emerges from this book as a more ambiguous figure
than the commanding leader portrayed by Mr. Woodward in "Bush at War."
In some scenes he is depicted as genuinely decisive (as in his
choice to go to United Nations in 2002). In others he seems
merely childish (eyeing Gen. Henry Shelton's peppermint during a meeting with
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, until the general passed it over.)
Sometimes Mr. Bush comes across as instinctive and shrewd
(dismissing a C.I.A. presentation on weapons of mass destruction as "not
something that Joe Public would understand or would gain a
lot of confidence from"). Sometimes he sounds petulant and defensive (saying
of Mr. Powell, "I didn't need his permission" to go to war). And sometimes
he simply seems like someone trying to live up to the "Persona"
outlined by his political adviser Karl Rove in a campaign brief: a
"Strong Leader" with a penchant for "Bold Action" and "Big Ideas."
Mr. Bush and the people around him - most notably Mr. Rove, Mr. Cheney,
Mr. Rumsfeld, the national security adviser Condoleezza Rice
and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz - are constantly talking
about the importance of showing resolve, of standing firm, of talking
the talk and walking the walk. And as plans for war advance, this posture
becomes part of the momentum toward war. As Mr. Bush himself
says of the weeks leading up to the war: "I began to be concerned
at the blowback coming out of America: `Bush won't act. The leader that we
thought was strong and straightforward and clear-headed has now
got himself in a position where he can't act.' And it wasn't on the left. It
was on the right."
Adding to the war momentum was the growing buildup of troops
in the Iraq theater, the approach of hot weather in the gulf (which would
make military operations more difficult), promises made to allies
like Saudi Arabia (Prince Bandar, Mr. Woodward reveals, was told of the
president's decision to go to war before Colin Powell was) and risky C.I.A.
operations in the region.
In the final walkup to war, Mr. Bush repeatedly asks associates:
"What's my last decision point?" "When have I finally made a commitment?"
Mr. Rumsfeld eventually tells the president, "The penalty for our country
and for our relationships and potentially the lives of some people
are at risk if you have to make a decision not to go forward."
By January 2003, this book reports, Mr. Bush had made up his mind
to take military action, but the book also suggests that that decision
was far from inevitable, given the many vagaries of intelligence findings,
domestic and international politics, and the personalities and
maneuverings of the people closest to the president.
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