Beating a retreat
KESAVA MENON
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Account of the disastrous policy followed by the Bush presidency in respect of Iraq
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STATE OF DENIAL — Bush at War, Part III: Bob Woodward; Simon & Schuster, Rockfeller Centre, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. $. 30.
Those who follow the news closely would have at least heard of this book State of Denial, the third in the series by Bob Woodward on the presidency of George W. Bush. Most of the juicy pieces of information provided in his latest effort by the veteran journalist of Watergate fame have already been extracted and published as news items. Readers would therefore know that Woodward, who hardly criticised Bush in the first two books of the series, has been harsh on the 43rd President in the third.
From the excerpts or accounts already published, the readers might know that in Bush's view Ronald Reagan and not his father was the model President. They would have learnt that the Secretary of State in the first term, Colin Powell, and the Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld did not get along. They might know that the White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card had tried hard with the First Lady, Laura Bush's blessing to persuade his boss to drop Rumsfeld from the cabinet. It is also no secret that Vice President Dick Cheney was more involved than his nominal boss in the running of the administration. Woodward narrates a whole slew of anecdotes that show up the different, negative aspects of the Bush presidency. Together with the news that is already in the public domain this account of the disastrous policy followed in respect of Iraq cannot but amount to an indictment. What is still more shocking, though Woodward cannot get himself to articulate it in so many words, is that the story he tells is of a wholly dysfunctional administration.
A different picture
It is unbelievable that any government, let alone that of a superpower, could be run in the way Woodward describes the functioning of the Bush administration. Cabinet meetings must have been agonising for serious participants though the disinterested reader is likely to be amused by the author's description of them. Powell would apparently state whatever he had to by directly addressing the President and no one else around the table. Rumsfeld would stare at the wall while the Secretary of State droned on.
When it came to the Defence Secretary's turn the process would be replicated in reverse with Powell staring at the wall. And these were the two key officials who had to pull along if the U.S. was to make anything of the huge military, political, financial and diplomatic investment it had made in Iraq.
To go by the account in this book, Bush apparently did not have a clue that he was supposed to lead the cabinet and orchestrate its meetings so that policy could be drawn up and implemented in a coherent fashion. Apparently, as Powell and Rumsfeld played out their charade, the President would do little more than fidget. When Bush did bestir himself into what could be called action by some stretch of the imagination it was merely to cheer on his team and exhort them to "stay the course" and do everything to achieve victory. That Woodward paints an altogether different picture of a man he wrote admiringly of in Plan of Attack and Bush at War is of course another matter.
Iraq policy drawbacks
The utter confusion at the cabinet level was apparently manifested right down the line. Rumsfeld had little interest in listening to the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee or the heads of the four armed services. He apparently made a habit of micro-managing commanders posted in Iraq and yet would refuse to own up responsibility when his directives produced adverse results. Plan after plan would be drawn up in Washington but in most instances the heads of departments— whether Defence, State or the National Security Council— would check down the line to see whether decisions were being implemented. Rumsfeld, who apparently thought that he owned the Iraq war comes across as the main culprit but from the author's account it is clear that almost every other senior official was at fault in one way or another. Even those whose performance could be considered better than average for the most part hardly qualify for appreciation if for no other reason than their failure to point out that the system was not working.
Conflicting
While Woodward has provided a fairly comprehensive account of the drawbacks in the implementation of Iraq policy, he does little to show that the basic premises were false. The policy was apparently drawn up by a group of academics and commentators with little input from military men or administrators. The author takes note of the processes through which the policy was drawn up but does not seriously examine the question as to why Iraq was targeted. From what little he provides, it appears that Bush chose to attack Iraq merely because he realised that his chances of re-election would be greater at a time of war and this particular West Asian country was the most vulnerable target.
The author has rightly come in for criticism even from within The Washington Post where he is a senior member of the editorial board. As the critics have pointed out Woodward appeared to recognise Bush's downside only after the President's popularity had plummeted. It is amazing that the author should have produced two laudatory accounts of the Bush administration and then a harshly critical one while relying largely on the same material.
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