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SAIS Review 23.2 (2003) 227-231



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History's First Draft

Kim Olsen


Bush At War, by Bob Woodward. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002). 379 pp. $28.

In the one hundred days after September 11, 2001, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward was granted unprecedented access to the highest-level deliberations of the Bush administration. Woodward attended numerous cabinet and National Security Council meetings and conducted one-on-one interviews with senior administration officials, including President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

Initially, the journalist in Woodward figures most prominently as he successfully explains the relationship between these six architects of post-September 11 U.S. foreign policy. Woodward portrays Cheney as a principled man with an unshakable belief that the United States would suffer another terrorist attack. An avid reader of intelligence reports, Cheney is viewed as a wise counsel to Bush in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. Later on, however, Woodward paints Cheney as an increasingly less objective advisor who conspires with Rumsfeld against Colin Powell. Powell is the odd man out; he consistently advises the president to act cautiously and is often thrown—at times almost maliciously—into the heat of diplomatic battle with little or no administration support. Rumsfeld is the boyish intellectual whose ability to play the press does not impress Woodward. Tenet, who seems to avoid the political ballgame between Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Powell, accepts Bush's orders and is perhaps too grateful for the new powers the president grants to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Rice is the policy coordinator and foreign policy tutor to the president. She is the only person Woodward leaves unscathed, primarily [End Page 227] because she is portrayed as never engaging in the backroom politicking that other administration figures favor. Woodward describes Bush as direct in his motivations, interests, and activities.

What becomes clear in Woodward's first meetings with the National Security Council is that the Bush administration harbors a deeply rooted fear of following the cautious Clinton precedent for fighting al-Qaeda. The White House refers to this cruise missile-based approach as "bombing sand"—that is, to utilize only cruise missiles in military engagements, a result of what Bush aides criticize as former President Clinton's "caution, safety plays, even squeamishness" in battle. Woodward writes that Rumsfeld believed in pursuing more robust military options even before September 11 and that this attitude melded perfectly into what would become known as the "Bush Doctrine," which holds that the United States will "make no distinction between those who planned these acts and those who harbor them." This commitment, according to Woodward, was made without asking Cheney, Rumsfeld, or Powell for advice. Rice, when asked for her opinion by President Bush, apparently demurred at first, but eventually agreed, believing that "words mattered more than almost anything else" after September 11.

Woodward repeatedly states that several administration officials viewed Afghanistan as only a first step in the war on terrorism. From the very beginning, Rumsfeld, in cooperation with Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, advocated targeting Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Colin Powell, ever the pragmatist, argued that any action needed public support, both in the United States and abroad, and he believed that in the first few weeks after September 11, the public favored an al-Qaeda focused strategy. Powell's conversation with then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Hugh Shelton highlights these different priorities. According to Woodward, Shelton told Powell that he had emphasized, "practicalities and priorities, but Wolfowitz was fiercely determined and committed [to Iraq instead]." Woodward also writes that several administration officials felt that [End Page 228] the United States should launch an attack on Iraq as an "insurance policy," just in case the Afghan campaign turned sour.

Woodward found several sources willing to comment on the political drama between Powell, Cheney, and Rumsfeld as they vied for the president's favor. He describes Bush and Powell as two men comfortable with locker room chatter...

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