Comments on "Bush at War"

What strikes one most upon finishing Bob Woodward's Bush at War (for the reader today with the advantage of hindsight) is the overwhelming feeling of: How could it have gone so wrong?

Woodward's book covers the first 100 days after 9/11, an exacting blow by blow account of President Bush and his inner circle's reaction to the terrorist attacks, the decision to go to war in Afghanistan, and the planning and execution of the initial phase of that war. One of the most highly respected investigative journalists in history, Woodward was given unprecedented access to President Bush and his war cabinet (including the VP, Secretaries of State and Defense, the Directors of the CIA and FBI and the National Security Advisor...they were, respectively, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Robert Mueller, and Condoleezza Rice).

First, let me be clear about what this book is. This isn't a political book. It is a book about politics, certainly, but that is somewhat incidental. It is a book of reporting, and what it reports happens to be politics. Woodward makes almost no commentary throughout the book, and only interjects his personal opinion (maybe a total of half a dozen times) when he can not say for certain what someone was feeling (in which he might write: It seemed to me that...). Woodward is a journalist first and foremost, and he makes no effort to play historian or political commentator. If you want the political screaming match, there are plenty of books from the left and the right to satisfy your taste...but this book isn't it.

Woodward's account brings us directly into the meetings where the actual decisions were made. We get moment to moment details of the daily conferences where all the options were on the board and the most powerful decision makers in our country chose this direction or that one and left others by the wayside. We see exactly the principal players' feelings, opinions and ideas about terrorism and the following war and how those opinions and ideas shaped American policy. Where do we go to war? How do we wage war? For how long? With what resources? It's all here.

What is most interesting is noting that if you had read this book in the summer after 9/11, you would have most likely felt supremely confident in the American leadership and certain that whatever challenges they faced they were the best men to handle them. For in these first 100 days, Bush and his team do very little wrong. In fact, every major decision appears to be the right one.

As in all major undertakings, there are differences of opinion. We see clear delineations between the worldviews of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Powell. There are also bumps in the road and minor setbacks, but nothing derailing and nothing honestly caused by any wrongheaded decisions made by these administrators. Most of what might be called “bumps” are put down to strategic challenges of waging war in Afghanistan, and all of those challenges, at least initially, were met and overcome.



Out of these first hundred days, two men truly stand out: President Bush and Secretary Powell. It is the President who is the first to raise the issue of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, and he does so within the first few meetings. He is also the one who hammers on the issue over and over again. It is the President who insists on a clear plan for victory in Afghanistan, who makes himself endlessly available to all his subordinates promising to meet any and every need they have to succeed, who demands a plan that is effective and not overly costly (I don't want to use million dollar missiles to blow up fifteen dollar tents), who clearly articulates time and again that he does not want American troops involved in nation building (insisting that America arm and aid the Afghan Northern Alliance instead of dropping a massive troop force which must stay in place for years on end), and who is continually concerned about building positive relations with the Afghan people. He is, in general, calm and collected, trusting of his staff and their plans, and the one seems to most understand from the beginning that the war against terrorism will be long and hard and they should not be deterred by the length of the endeavor or the criticism they will face. All in all, the majority of his decisions in these first 100 days are the right ones.

Secretary Powell comes away as one of the most confident, level-headed, mature and wise men in American politics. Certainly, out of all present in this book, he is the one who possesses these qualities to their fullest. Time and again one finds the thought creeping into the mind: This man should be president. In this instance, not generally because President Bush is doing a poor job, for he is not, but simply because Secretary Powell seems to be the man best suited to the job. By the end, what one comes to believe is that America may have lost the opportunity to elect one of its greatest presidents, for Powell would almost certainly have been one had he ever run for election.

Sadly, from where we stand now it is clear that something went wrong early in Bush's presidency. No matter where you sit politically, one can not deny certain facts: bin Laden was never captured, political stability was never achieved in Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq has not gone well, America did engage in nation building, the economy collapsed, and the American people mostly turned against Bush and his policies. Judging from Woodward's book, it is hard to understand why.

One does see a few elements of this collapse. First is Iraq. President Bush and his council bring up Iraq from day one, but they quickly put it on the shelf. It is clear that toppling Saddam in Iraq is a clear goal from the very beginning of Bush's presidency, but the decision is made to take Afghanistan first and return to discuss Iraq later. Only Secretary Powell is against the invading of Iraq. As a former military general, he understands the full implications of such a mission, and as Secretary of State he understands the full political ramifications. In fact, Powell at one point asks Bush for a private meeting, two and a half hours long, to lay out exactly and specifically why they should not invade Iraq. His insight into this issue is (despite its length) concise, insightful, worldly and (as can be seen in hindsight now) entirely dead-on accurate.

It is chillingly telling to note that everything Secretary Powell warned against when invading Iraq happened: major logistical problems, long-haul standing army, breakdown of American/Middle Eastern relations, view of America as the Invader, subsequent rise in terrorism and terrorist recruitment, massive financial toll on American economy, destabilization of the Middle East, enormous increase in oil prices...Secretary Powell's reasoning reads like a laundry list of everything that went wrong in Bush's presidency.

There are a few unsettling elements of President Bush the man. First, his willingness to “go it alone” if needs be. This opinion is one he initially kept under control in the first 100 days, but one that we know now became a major issue for his presidency later on. Like it or not, going it alone was not a practical strategy, as Secretary Powell and other advisors pointed out. Superpower America may be, but it is quite simply not possible to execute a war on the other side of the world, to say nothing of two wars or a “global war on terror” without the cooperation and assistance of other countries. This is made vibrantly clear from the start, as the biggest challenge faced by America in the initial phase of the war in Afghanistan is simply getting permission by various countries to use their air bases as landing and launching points for the US Air Force. Without such permission, the US military literally could not launch a war (unless it wanted to invade multiple other countries, many of them allies).

Second, was President Bush's set belief that he was a president with a vision, a president who would change the world and alter history. This is not necessarily a bad quality for a president. Looking back, it would seem that many of our best presidents had it. However, in this case one can see how this belief in a grand and shining vision may have been President Bush's undoing. It would, one knows, lead him and his cabinet to make decisions based on that vision and not entirely on reality.

Finally, there is the continued feeling that certain members of President Bush's team, primarily Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld, whose fervent desire to invade Iraq, go it alone, and use any and every means necessary would eventually come to dominate over the more level-headed and realistic viewpoint of members like Secretary Powell. One does not get so much the view that men like Cheney and Rumsfeld are evil, sinister and lusting for power (though perhaps they are, Woodward makes no such commentary), but rather that they are simply determined, single-minded and unwavering in their beliefs. It is their inability to see other points of view which will no doubt lead them down mistaken paths.

Woodward wrote four books on Bush's presidency. Bush at War is the first. The second, Plan of Attack, addresses the decision, lead up to and eventual invasion of Iraq. It is this second book that I am reading now.

Mostly when I write about books on this blog it is because I wish to share them with everyone else and recommend them for reading. Certainly, I think Woodward's book is worth your time. It is well written and insightful. However, it is not stunning in its language or particularly moving, though it is a fantastic piece of reporting.

No, my goal here is simply a kind of running commentary on my own deeper reading about the eight years of Bush's presidency and the lead up to the current political world we live in now. To understand the issues facing us today we must understand how we got to the place where we currently stand. Regarding the majority of the problems facing President Obama, one must have a deep understanding of President Bush's legacy.