State of Denial

State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III by Bob Woodward (Amazon.com)

• State of Denial - Washington Post Excerpt
• Should Rumsfeld Stay? - Washington Post Excerpt
• CIA Chief Warned Rice on Al Qaeda - New York Times
• Rice Disputes Report CIA Warned Her About Attack - Washington Post
• Rice Denies Brush Off of CIA Terror Warning - Los Angeles Times
• 'State of Denial' Lands Early And Hits Harder - Washington Post
• Sept. 11 Panel Wasn’t Told of Meeting, Members Say - New York Times
• U.S. Kept Iraq Intelligence From Blair - London Times / The Australian
• Card Urged Bush to Replace Rumsfeld, Woodward Says - Washington Post
• Book Details Attempts to Oust Rumsfeld - Los Angeles Times
• White House Disputes Report of Anti-Rumsfeld Moves - Washington Post
• Rumsfeld Says He Has Bush's Confidence - Associated Press
• Aide: Bush Backs Rumsfeld, Disputes Book - USA Today
• White House Lists Book's 'Five Key Myths' - Washington Post
• Book Says Bush Ignored Urgent Warning on Iraq - New York Times
• Rummy Blasted in Book - New York Daily News
• Bush Team Hiding True Iraq Violence - The Australian
• Watergate Veteran Aims at Bush - London Times
• Woodward: Kissinger Advising Bush - ABC News
• Democrats Cite Woodward Book - USA Today
• Senate Democrats Criticize Bush, Rumsfeld - Washington Post
• Is Woodward Calling Bush a Liar? - Washington Post
• End of the Affair - Time Magazine
• Trumping Woodward - Washington Post
• Denial, Arrogance Led U.S. Into Iraq Trap - USA Today Editorial
• The Leaders We Have - Washington Post Commentary
• Woodward's Real Revelation - National Review Commentary
• Rumsfeld Out? - Washington Times Commentary
• States of Denial - Washington Times Commentary
• Woodward: The Boring Fabulist - Wall Street Journal Commentary
• Who's Really in Denial? - Weekly Standard Commentary
• The Cold War Inside the Pentagon - Los Angeles Times Commentary
• Bush vs. Woodward - Slate Commentary
• Why Does Rumsfeld Still Have a Job? - Foreign Policy Blog
• The Cold War Inside the Pentagon - On Point Blog
• The Bob Woodward -- Donald Rumsfeld Interviews - Belmont Club Blog

Any comments from the SWC?

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Any comments from the SWC?

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Gulp....sorry, Dave, I am still digesting. This one has many courses and many flavors...I am going to have to order the book--I will do it via SWJ.

Best
Tom

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Originally Posted by Tom Odom

Gulp....sorry, Dave, I am still digesting. This one has many courses and many flavors...I am going to have to order the book--I will do it via SWJ.

Best
Tom

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I just ordered the book - unlike Ricks, Trainor, Gordon and West - I have reservations about Woodward. But like they say, even a broken clock is right two times a day. The book deserves a serious read and a bounce-off of what we all know to be "fact" - if that is possible these days.

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Originally Posted by SWJED

I just ordered the book - unlike Ricks, Trainor, Gordon and West - I have reservations about Woodward. But like they say, even a broken clock is right two times a day. The book deserves a serious read and a bounce-off of what we all know to be "fact" - if that is possible these days.

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I've got to read the book. I did read several excerpts this weekend. Woodward appeared to be making a pretty substantial case, but from the excerpts it's hard to tell if it's blow or go.

:)

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Originally Posted by SWJED

I just ordered the book - unlike Ricks, Trainor, Gordon and West - I have reservations about Woodward. But like they say, even a broken clock is right two times a day. The book deserves a serious read and a bounce-off of what we all know to be "fact" - if that is possible these days.

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Just sent in mine to Amazon via SWJ. I am headed to my wife's farm in Oklahoma tomorrow for 5 days of bowhunting so I will read it when I get back.

best all,

Tom

Andrew Bacevich on the On Point blog - The Cold War Inside the Pentagon.

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Bob Woodward's new book, "State of Denial," has political junkies everywhere chattering. Along with its gossipy insider revelations, the book casts light on at least one important substantive issue: the abysmal state of relations between the nation's top generals and the Pentagon's senior civilian leaders, most notably Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.

The debacle that is Iraq today has many sources. Among them, civil-military dysfunction may well deserve pride of place. At the pinnacle of the U.S. national security establishment, mistrust and mutual manipulation rather than candor and mutual respect form the basis of interaction between civilian and military chiefs.

This has been true for decades, although the generals and the politicians have pretended otherwise. Now Woodward has let the cat out of the bag...

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William Kristol in the Weekly Standard - Who's Really in Denial?

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President Bush is right. It would be nice if he weren't. The country would be better off if there were bipartisan agreement on what is at stake in the struggle against jihadist Islam. But despite areas of consensus, there is still a fundamental difference between the parties. Bush and the Republicans know we are in a serious war. It's not the Bush administration that is in a "State of Denial" (as the new Bob Woodward book has it). It's the Democrats...

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Victor Davis Hanson:

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Most genres don’t require footnotes—the memoir, the essay, the journalistic dispatch. I’ve written histories that had too many footnotes—The Other Greeks had citations to ancient sources in the text, explanations with asterisks at the bottom of the page, and formal endnotes at the back of the book—and memoirs like Fields Without Dreams and Mexifornia with no citations.

But when you write history, and especially history of a contentious nature about Iraq, in which so much is at stake, it is incumbent to identify primary sources. The last three books about the supposed mess in Iraq—Cobra II, Fiasco, and now State of Denial—violate every canon of intellectual courtesy. Check who said what in Cobra II and you find the following: “Interview, former senior military officer”, “Interview, former senior officer”, “Interview, former Centcom planner,” Interview, Pentagon Officials,” “Interview, U.S. State Department Official,” or “notes of a participant.”

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Every source in Cobra II, Fiasco, or State of Denial, may be accurate, but we will never know that, because for a variety of reasons the authors who claim they worked from notes and recordings, chose not to identify the most inflammatory sources by name. It would be as if I wrote a history of the Peloponnesian War and, to support my most controversial points, added footnotes that stated “A manuscript in the Vatican,” or “Private letter to author from anonymous Greek shepherd attesting a stone altar in his field”

Finally, note the silence from the numerous critics of the “Path to 9/11” who objected to the film’s adaptation of the 9/11 report. But that docu-drama clearly identified itself as a fictionalized rendition of a document, and made no claims as history. In contrast, this new genre of journalistic exposé purports to give us the real story of Iraq, but denies us the very tools of determining whether what we are reading is true, half-true, or simply made up.

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I have not read State of Denial, but I have read every MNFI weekly news briefing for the last three years and I recall many power points presentations where the number of attacks were given as well as the number of them that have been effective, i.e. caused casualties to troops or civilians. What is clear from this information is that while enemy attacks may be growing in number their effectiveness is shrinking significantly. In other word the enemy is having to expend greater effort for less result which does not imply that he is winning. When you add to that, the fact that most of his "effective: attacks are against non combatants, it means he is further alienating the people of Iraq whithout changing the corelation of forces. Woodward's reporting on this point really misses the mark.

I would reserve comment on the Woodward’s book until I have actually read it however little of what I have read about it seem implausible. That being said I think there is probably a bit of hyperbole to it. For instance the article about the Bush teem hiding the number of attacks, these numbers are out there, the administration just doesn’t advertise them and of course like all politicians the spin like crazy.

Merv-While numbers of coalition casualties have remained steady in the face of increasing attacks, the total number of casualties has increased at a similar rate to that of attacks, leading me to question your theory of a dramatic decrease in effectiveness. In fact the casualty rate appears to be increasing faster than the rate of attacks; of course this is no doubt a result of greater targeting of civilians. However this targeting of civilians only seems to alienate sections of the population from each other thus decreasing the chance of a stable united Iraq in the near future.

http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs...ortAug29r1.pdf

As with many others, I have not completed a reading of the book; yet, I am surprised by so many comments concerning the implausibility of his assertions, research, and conclusions. If this book is full of hyperbole or just plain b.s., does this mean that his first two books that were generally supportive of the administration and the war are crap as well?

I find it interesting that so many thought that his earlier books were so pro Bush; I thought that they were at best neutral, at times pointing out some real shortcomings with administration judgment. I wonder if I is a matter of perspective, when those books came out people were generally more optimistic towards the Iraq war so in that context they viewed them as being pro Bush. I have been pessimistic about the Iraq war since I became convinced that the president was determined to invade, spring 2002, so I read the books with my pessimistic point of view.

Strickland writes:

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As with many others, I have not completed a reading of the book; yet, I am surprised by so many comments concerning the implausibility of his assertions, research, and conclusions. If this book is full of hyperbole or just plain b.s., does this mean that his first two books that were generally supportive of the administration and the war are crap as well?

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Could be. Here is a statement by Brent Scowcroft via Real Clear Politics:

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"I have spoken to Bob Woodward a number of times about a variety of subjects over the years, but I did not agree to be interviewed for his latest book. Further, there are statements in the book, directly or implicitly attributed to me, that did not and never could have come from me. I never discuss any personal conversations that I may have with President George H.W. Bush, and he never discusses with me any conversations that he has with President George W. Bush."

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Substantial doubt has also been raised about one of his earlier books by a former associate at the Washington Post.