SMH : Woodward's book damns Bush team

Woodward's book damns Bush team

by Michael Gawenda | October 2, 2006

THE White House is bracing for a week of damage control in the wake of the publication of a new book by the Watergate journalist Bob Woodward in which the Bush Administration is described as dysfunctional and faction-ridden, and President George Bush as "intellectually incurious".

State of Denial, of which almost a million copies were rushed to American bookshops at the weekend, claims Mr Bush's then chief-of-staff tried to convince him to fire the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, at least twice in the last two years, the second time with the support of the first lady, Laura Bush.

It also reveals that the 82-year-old Henry Kissinger, secretary of state during the Nixon administration, has become an adviser to the President. Dr Kissinger, who has long argued that the Vietnam War was lost because of a lack of political will, has confirmed he has had regular meetings with Mr Bush, "just me and the President".

Several recent books have revealed how the White House has ignored advice from senior military officers and State Department officials that more troops were needed to defeat the growing insurgency in Iraq, warnings that came within weeks of Mr Bush declaring victory.

State of Denial confirms all of this and goes further, revealing how Mr Bush has never sought to question virtually any of the officials who had issued these warnings, instead relying on advice from senior commanders in the military who were loath to tell the President hard truths.

Mr Bush emerges from the book as a man of little self-doubt, who constantly tells his aides that as commander-in-chief, his job is to exude confidence in his decisions. He is, according to Woodward, a man of deep faith who prays regularly for guidance and believes his prayers are answered.

While Woodward's reporting that the then secretary of state, Colin Powell, and Mr Rumsfeld could not stand one another is not new, his assertion that Mr Powell's successor, Condoleezza Rice, urged Mr Bush to sack Mr Rumsfeld is. By the time she urged the sacking, Dr Rice and Mr Rumsfeld were hardly talking. At the urging of the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, Mr Bush refused to sack Mr Rumsfeld.

A number of Administration officials, including Andrew Card, who was the White House chief of staff until March this year, urged Mr Bush to sack Mr Rumsfeld, as did Mrs Bush, though the White House has emphatically denied this.

The book also reveals that both of Mr Bush's parents have become increasingly concerned about the war in Iraq.

At one stage, at a function, his mother, Barbara, approached David Boren, a former Democratic Party senator who had worked closely with her husband when Mr Bush senior was CIA director in the 1970s. She asked him to be candid about the war.

"Are we right to be worried about this Iraq thing?" Mrs Bush asked

"Yes, very worried," he said.

"Do you think it's a mistake?"

"Yes, ma'am. I think it's a huge mistake if we go in … "

"Well, his father is certainly worried and is losing sleep over it. He's up at night worried."

"Why doesn't he talk to him?"

"He doesn't think he should unless he's asked."

Woodward suggests that President Bush never asked his father for advice about whether going to war in Iraq was a good idea, and has not talked to him at any great length about Iraq since the war started.

Indeed, Woodward's description of the relationship of President Bush with his father suggested that the President may love his father but does not respect him very much as a politician.

At one stage, according to Woodward, the Republican Party presidential hopeful John McCain was asked whether President Bush had ever asked him for his views on Iraq.

"No, no, he hasn't," Mr McCain says. "As a matter of fact, he's not intellectually curious.

"But one of the things he did say one time was 'I don't want to be like my father. I want to be like Ronald Reagan'."

There are some minor but revealing revelations in the book.

Mr Bush and his senior adviser, Karl Rove, for instance, enjoy fart jokes, which they tell each other sometimes in the middle of Oval Office meetings.