| | Bloomberg critic: Woodward's lips attached to Bush's backside in new book
Woodward writes of 'Doubt, Distrust, Delay' in lead-up to the surgeBob Woodward's latest insider White House book, The War Within, presents a larger-than-life image of President Bush as a forceful leader who insisted on implementing the "surge" in Iraq against the advice of all his top generals and was proved correct by events.
However, Bloomberg's book critic Craig Seligman takes a more skeptical attitude towards Woodward's revelations, writing, "George W. Bush strides through 'The War Within,' the fourth volume of Bob Woodward's Bush administration chronicles, radiating certainty, strength and presidentialness. It must have been a challenge for him to walk so confidently with Woodward's lips attached to his backside."
"Without a little perspective," Seligman adds, "the modest but real gains the surge achieved are inflated into the climax of a triumphal narrative in which, through the grit and faith of a strong, stubborn president, near-defeat was transformed into victory."
In a pre-publication interview with CBS's Scott Pelley, Woodward frankly admitted the purely political motivations behind the surge. "It was a raw political calculation," he said of Bush's refusal to acknowledge prior to the 2006 elections that he his own military had concluded the war was being lost and that it would be best to start withdrawing. "If you tell the public ... that they are reconsidering what they're doing ... all political hell would break loose."
Bush's own impulse was always to become more aggressive. According to Woodward, "This is Bush's concern, that we're not going out and killing. In fact, [General George] Casey told one colleague privately that the president's view is almost reflective of 'Kill the bastards, kill the bastards, that way we'll succeed.'"
Woodward also quotes Bush as saying, "I don't understand that the Iraqis are not appreciative of what we've done for them."
In a decision-making process that even Woodward describes as marked by "impulsiveness and carelessness," Bush settled on a plan, recommended by his civilian advisers in the Pentagon, to add tens of thousands more troops. Three weeks after the November 2006 elections, he convinced a reluctant Prime Minister Maliki to accept this strategy, even though he hadn't yet informed his own generals. "The military is kind on the outside of this," Woodward explained, "because they are adhering to the strategy of drawing down."
When the generals did find out, they were horrified. Woodward told Pelley, "They think it won't work. And the president actually at one point goes and meets with them, and the Army Chief of Staff, General [Peter] Schoomaker says that you can't add five brigades, it will take many more. What about another crisis? We don't have troops for this. What about the damage you're doing to the force, the young kids who've seen nothing but endless rotations?"
That was the point at which Bush replaced George Casey with David Petraeus as the top general in Iraq and also fired Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.
Since then, the level of violence in Iraq has dropped considerably, although Woodward suggests that this may be due less to higher troop levels in Baghdad than to the decision by Sunni leaders in Anbar Province to turn against al Qaeda in Iraq, combined with a top secret Special Operations program involving the surveillance and targeted assassination of al Qaeda and insurgent leaders.
Woodward concluded the interview by saying that the Bush administration feels satisfied that it has tied the hands of the next president with regard to Iraq, because General Petraeus is too successful to be removed or overruled and he is against any rapid withdrawal. "General Petraeus is sitting with 140,000 troops in Iraq now, when conditions are definitely better," Woodward noted, "but Petraeus say it's still reversible and fragile."
This video is from CBS's 60 Minutes, broadcast September 7, 2008.
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