Woodward's book

I saw some of the interview on 60 Minutes. I didn't see anything shocking or that is overwhelmingly new. I also thought Mike Wallace did a really weak job of interviewing him.

Henry Kissinger is advising Bush and Cheney? No surprise there. Dr. K was the first choice to head the 9/11 Commission before that drew howls of outrage - if you wanted to find out the truth about something, Henry Kissinger is the last person you would want doing it. If you were a Democratic president, you probably would talk to Kissinger every so often just so you have him inside rather than outside possibly creating problems.

The generals aren't happy with Rumsfield? No big news there. Retired generals have been clear about this and the current generals can't be insubordinate.

The insurgency is getting worse and it was the opposite of what the Bush White House said? I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you.

 

His first two Bush books were outright hagiography.

The fun part of reading them (and this one, I assume) is picking out who cooperated with him -- they're usually described in pretty fulsome terms. Check out his descriptions of Rumsfeld in the first two books.

 

Woodward said on Larry King tonight that the reason he didn't put some of it the Post was because the material begs to be presented as a whole, not just as fragmented stories appearing in a paper over time.

 

Balls, and you can quote me.
If he believed that in 1972, we wouldn't have read about Watergate until 1975.

 

Good point. Woodward wants it both ways - he wants the cachet of being a reporter for the Washington Post, but he doesn't want to have to write his biggest stories for the paper.

 

I doubt Woodward would have any problem telling the WaPo to go take a flying fuck if they decided that he couldn't write is book and continue to work for the paper.

 

Messrs Hecht & Bastard,

Heartily agree. Retail journalism. Prospered by partnership early on. Now he's not buying at the (Morally) Bankrupt Sale. And earning favour with whomever (McCain, Hil) fills the void.

The only thing more dis-spiriting than W et al is Woodward. And whatever I said about Deep Throat not being a composite or whatever--that I can attribute to Ben Bradlee, not W & B.

YHS, etc

 

Is anyone reading this book? If the first 78.5 pages are any indication, Donald Rumsfeld needs to be tarred and feathered!

Excerpt from narrative describing meeting after 9/11:
Bush asked what the military could do immediately (in Afghanistan). Rumsfeld replied, "Very little, effectively."

Later that day, at another NSC meeting, Rumsfeld asked Bush, Why shouldn't we go against Iraq, not just al Qaeda? Rumsfeld was among those who thought Bush's father had failed by not taking out Saddam. one night in 1995, on a trip to Vietnam with his friend Ken Adelman, Rumsfeld kept Adelman up until 3 A.M., giving him an earful on how badly the elder Bush had screwed up...

The president put Rumsfeld off, wanting to focus on Afghanistan, al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden (not for long, though).

The CIA stepped in to fill the void left by the secretary of defense and the uniformed military. Within 48 hours, Tenet and Cofer Black briefed Bush on their plan. They could bring to bear all the resources of the intelligence community, combined with U.S. military power and Special Forces, harness the factional opposition known as the Northern Alliance, defeat the Taliban and close out the al Qaeda sactuary. As disquieting as Rumsfeld's admission of the Pentagon's impotence was, Black was just as reassuring. "Mr. President, we can do this," he said. "No doubt in my mind."

Tenet dispatched the CIA's covert paramilitary team, code-named Jawbreaker, into Afghanistan 15 days after the attacks. Bombin began 11 days later, on October 7, 2001. The campaign represented some of the CIA's finest moments after 9/11, and it was a frustrating time for Rumsfeld. General Franks had only 31 Taliban and al Qaeda targets for the first day of bombing and Rumsfeld was all over target selection, insisting they also destroy some four dozen Taliban airplanes.

Air Force Lieutenant General Charles F. Wald, the Saudi Arabia-based CENTCOM air component commander, told his boss, General Franks, that they had bombed and destroyed the runways. The Taliban aircraft weren't a threat because they could not conceivably take off.

...

Jawbreaker and the other CIA paramilitary teams were doing just as Tenet had promised, leading the way in toppling the Taliban from pwer, and denying bin Laden much of his sanctuary, forcing him into hiding. I all a small team of approximately 110 CIA officers and 316 Special Forces operators, in many ways similar to the more mobile military Rumsfeld desired, combined with massive airpower, were getting the job done.

And Rumsfeld sat uneasily on the sidelines. At an NSC meeting on October 16, his frustration boiled over. "This is the CIA's strategy," he declared. "They developed the strategy. We're just executing the strategy."

CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin, who was taking Tenet's place that day at the NSC meeting, insisted the agency was just supporting Franks.

"No," Rumsfeld retorted, "you guys are in charge."

Armitage, who was there in place of Powell, stuck it into Rumsfeld. "I think what I'm hearing is FUBAR," Armitage said, using an old military term meaning "Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition." How could they prosecute a war if they couldn't agree who was in charge?

After the meeting Rice took Rumsfeld aside. "Don, this is now a military operation and you really have to be in charge."

Steve Hadley, Rice's deputy, even weighed in, telling Rumsfeld he needed to design a strategy. "It's yours for the taking."

Later Powell also told Rumsfeld he was in charge whether he wanted to be or not.

Rumsfeld had been humiliated by McLaughlin, Armitage, the president, Rice, Hadley and Powell.

Never again. The next month, when the president ordered him to look seriously at the Iraq war plan, Rumsfeld made it his personal project. This would be his. [/Woodard Book]

I WONDER... HOW WILL THIS TURN OUT???