Plan of Attack: The Definitive Account of the Decision to Invade Iraq
by Bob Woodward
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Book Summary Information
Author: Bob WoodwardEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-10-05
ISBN: 0743255488
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
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Book Reviews of Plan of Attack: The Definitive Account of the Decision to Invade Iraq
Book Review: It Was All About Regime Change
Summary: 5 Stars
Some two years after the US invasion of Iraq and the failure to find any WMD's President Bush "admitted" that the intel(-ligence) was faulty. In early January 2001 before Bush was inaugurated as President of the United States, Vice President-elect Dick Cheney passed a message to then Secretary of Defense William Cohen asking that Bush be briefed on matters of national security. Topic A should be Iraq, specified Cheney. During the briefing Bush was more interested in the peppermints on the table than what was said, Cheney nodded off, and Rumsfeld kept asking the speakers to speak louder. After the briefing Cohen believed that the new administration would see that there was not much support in the Near East for an attack on Iraq.
A few days later (still in January of 2001) Bush received a second briefing from George Tenet, Director of the CIA, and his deputy James Pavitt. Tenet and Pavitt agreed that there were three major threats to the United States. Number One was Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Second was WMD's. Third was China. Iraq was barely mentioned.
72 days after 9-11, President Bush clamped his arm on Rumsfeld and said," I need to see you." The arm clamping was a gesture between close friends. Before Rumsfeld became Secretary of Defense, he was interviewed by Bush. Rumsfeld characterized the defensive posture of the Clinton Administration as "reflexive pullback" (Rumsfeld did not have Bosnia in mind) whereas Rumsfeld believed that the new Bush administration should be "forward-leaning." 72 days after 9-11 Bush wanted to know what kind of plans the Secretary of Defense could muster for an attack on Iraq.
The "intellectual" godfather of regime change in Iraq was Paul Wolfowitz. Wolfowitz proposed the enclave strategy. Wolfowitz believed that the US could send troops into southern Iraq and
seize some 1000 oil wells, about two-thirds of all of Iraq's production. From this enclave, support would be given to forces opposing Saddam Hussein. Colin Powell thought Wolfowitz was talking as if 25 million Iraqis would rush to oppose
Hussein. "This is lunacy," Powell said.
On 9-11 some 3000 Americans died. That very same day Rumsfeld raised the question with his staff the possibility of "going after Iraq as a response to the terrorist attacks." The next day, in the inner circle of Bush's war cabinet, Rumsfeld asked if the attacks did not present an "opportunity" to attack Iraq. In an interview a year later, Bush said that Rumsfeld was wise for trying to show that the war of terror was global.
But at that time, it had not been shown that there was _no_ collaborative relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. That is, it had not been shown to the American public. Since that time it has been shown to the American public that there was no collaborative relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, that there were no WMD's, and that the CIA tried to tell this to the Bush administration six months before the US invasion. By then it did not matter. By then it did not matter what the intel found; it was all about regime change. Bush's centerpiece of his "war" on terror never was about 9-11; it was about regime change.
Summary of Plan of Attack: The Definitive Account of the Decision to Invade Iraq
Plan of Attack is the definitive account of how and why President George W. Bush, his war council, and allies launched a preemptive attack to topple Saddam Hussein and occupy Iraq. Bob Woodward's latest landmark account of Washington decision making provides an original, authoritative narrative of behind-the-scenes maneuvering over two years, examining the causes and consequences of the most controversial war since Vietnam.Based on interviews with 75 key participants and more than three and a half hours of exclusive interviews with President Bush, Plan of Attack is part presidential history charting the decisions made during 16 critical months; part military history revealing precise details and the evolution of the Top Secret war planning under the restricted codeword Polo Step; and part a harrowing spy story as the CIA dispatches a covert paramilitary team into northern Iraq six months before the start of the war. This team recruited 87 Iraqi spies designated with the cryptonym DB/ROCKSTARS, one of whom turned over the personnel files of all 6,000 men in Saddam Hussein's personal security organization.
What emerges are astonishingly intimate portraits: President Bush in war cabinet meetings in the White House Situation Room and the Oval Office, and in private conversation; Dick Cheney, the focused and driven vice president; Colin Powell, the conflicted and cautious secretary of state; Donald Rumsfeld, the controlling war technocrat; George Tenet, the activist CIA director; Tommy Franks, the profane and demanding general; Condoleezza Rice, the ever-present referee and national security adviser; Karl Rove, the hands-on political strategist; other key members of the White House staff and congressional leadership; and foreign leaders ranging from British Prime Minister Blair to Russian President Putin.
Plan of Attack provides new details on the intelligence assessments of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction and the planning for the war's aftermath.
The 2003 American invasion of Iraq was contentious, not just in the arena of global public opinion, but within the tight-lipped world of the George W. Bush White House. As Bob Woodward reveals in Plan of Attack, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were part of a group leading the charge to war while Secretary of State Colin Powell, General Tommy Franks, and others actively questioned the plan to invade a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks while war in Afghanistan was still being waged. Woodward gained extensive access to dozens of key figures and enjoyed hours of direct contact with the President himself (more time, seemingly, than former Bush administration officials Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill claim to have had). As a result, he's able to cite the kind of gossip you won't find in a White House press release: Franks calls Pentagon official Douglas Feith "the f*cking stupidest guy on the face of the earth," Powell shares his alarm over how the cautious Cheney of the first Bush administration had transformed into a zealot, and Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar seems to enjoy significantly more entrée and influence than most anyone would have thought. Bush is shown as a man intent on toppling Saddam Hussein in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and never really wavering in his decision despite offering hints that non-military solutions could be achieved. Light is also shed on CIA director George Tenet, who insists that the evidence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction was "a slam dunk" only to later admit that his intelligence was flawed when months of post-war searches turned up nothing. But the book's most interesting character is Powell. A former soldier himself, who finds himself increasingly at odds with the agenda of the administration, Powell rejects evidence on WMDs that he sees as spurious but ultimately endorses the invasion effort, apparently out of duty. Upon its publication, the Bush administration roundly denied many of the accounts in the book that demonstrated conflict within their circles, poor judgment, or lousy planning, but the Bush/Cheney reelection campaign nonetheless listed Plan of Attack as recommended reading. And it is. It shows alarming problems in the way the war was conceived and planned, but it also demonstrates the tremendous conviction and dedication of the people who decided to carry it out. --John Moe
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