As violence in Iraq reaches unnerving levels in 2006, a second front in the war rages at the highest levels of the Bush administration. In his fourth book on George W. Bush, Bob Woodward takes readers deep inside the tensions, secret debates, unofficial backchannels, distrust and determination within the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq. With unparalleled intimacy and detail, this gripping account of a president at war describes a period of distress and uncertainty within the U.S. government from 2006 through mid-2008.
The White House launches a secret strategy review that excludes the military. General George Casey, the commander in Iraq, believes that President Bush does not understand the war and eventually concludes he has lost the president’s confidence. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also conduct a secret strategy review that goes nowhere. On the verge of revolt, they worry that the military will be blamed for a failure in Iraq.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice strongly opposes a surge of additional U.S. forces and confronts the president, who replies that her suggestions would lead to failure. The president keeps his decision to fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld from Vice President Dick Cheney until two days before he announces it. A retired Army general uses his high-level contacts to shape decisions about the war, as Bush and Cheney use him to deliver sensitive messages outside the chain of command.
The War Within provides the account of George W. Bush not being in touch with reality, and in many ways, detached from major decision making activities related to the War. It also shows that HIGHLY SECRET OPERATIONS against the Insurgents were employed in Iraq that to this day, people are afraid to talk about it. These operations were adopted to kill and destroy all leaders of the insurgents, and are higly classified.
The War Within addresses head-on questions of leadership, not just in war but in how we are governed and the dangers of unwarranted secrecy.
Larry King of CNN interviewed Bob Woodward two days ago. Hope you find it interesting:
