You're Back, Bob! Woodward's Book Bisects Bushies by Robert Sam Anson Plan of Attack, by Bob Woodward. Simon and Schuster, 468 pages, $28. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome back, Mr. Woodward. Your friends were worried that maybe "Deep Throat" or Judy Belushi or Bill Caseyâs widow kidnapped you in some parking garage, hauled you off to a secret lab in Langley and implanted a chip in your noggin that turned you into a stenographer for whoever was throwing the best Georgetown dinner parties. How else to account for whatâs been churned out under your name the last decade or two? The Agenda, The Choice, Maestro, Shadowâthose were icky enough. But making out Dubya to be George C. Marshall and George S. Patton rolled into one in Bush At War? That wasnât the old Bob Woodward, co-bringer-down of Nixon; it must have been a suck-up doppelgänger. Plan of Attack, thank goodness, proves our anxieties misplaced: The Bob Woodward who helped ensure that thereâd be a Bill of Rights left for John Ashcroft to violate wasnât body-snatched or imprisoned in Area 51 with the Roswell aliens. In that patient, grinding Midwestern way of his, heâs just been working a plan, lulling the High and Mighty to sleep, making them think he was a court eunuch, waiting for the moment when the nation truly needed him again. Now itâs arrived. And in the manner of Cincinnatus dropping his plow or Clark Kent finally finding a phone booth, the Bob Woodward of yoreâthe one Robert Redford played in All the Presidentâs Menâhas returned, and further invitations to the Bush White House are kaput. How good is this book? Well, if discomfort caused is the measure of greatness achieved, forget about the PulitzerâMr. Woodward deserves a Nobel. Itâs been sweet Schadenfreude to watch all the squirming. There was Condi Rice trying to convince Fox News that Mr. Woodwardâs got it wrong about Colin Powell and Dick Cheney loathing each other so thoroughly they no longer speak (they were "very friendly" whenever she lunched with them); and White House spokesman Scott McClellan declining comment on Mr. Woodwardâs report that Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar promised Dubya heâd drop oil prices to grease the November election ("You can ask Prince Bandar," advised Mr. McClellan by way of kiss-off); and Colin Powellâfriend and primary source of the author through three booksâdenying most everything written by Mr. Woodward (with whom, the Secretary of State assured us, heâd only had a couple of phone chats anyway, and he only took those calls on White House ordersâwhich he famously follows undeviatingly). And Mr. Woodward? Heâs been as unruffled as a Presbyterian deacon at a triple funeral whilst making his 60 MinutesâLarry King LiveâToday Show rounds. Locked away in his safe is the source of his serenity: three and a half on-the-record hours of the President blabbing on tape. George W. Bush, you might imagine, has been kicking anything within Residence Quarters reach ever since the A.P. scooped The Washington Post on the about-to-be-detonated literary W.M.D. According to Mr. Woodward, he didnât just cooperate and command the whole of the executive branch to do the sameâthe book that became Plan of Attack was the Presidentâs idea. Truth is, Mr. Bush probably feels fine. The passages that have all of Manhattan and West L.A. a-snicker (not checking with Dad because "there is a Higher Father that I appeal to"; praying to "be as good a messenger of His will as possible" while going about freeing the world) will play swell out in the red states, and in big chunks of the blue ones, too. Moreover, if thereâs one character in Plan of Attack whoâs in command, who doesnât suffer doubt, who asks tough questions, sniffs out phonies before their next sentence is out and wonât let nobody lead him around by the nose (except Dick Cheney), itâs George Walker Bush. For Kerry voters, thatâs as amazing as it is alarming. The good news, Senator, is that Mr. Woodwardâa Nixon voter whose high-school valedictory was on the wisdom of Barry Goldwaterâs The Conscience of a Conservativeâdelivers other stupefactions that Bob Shrum will want to take a close look at. In the High Crimes and Misdemeanors category, thereâs the $700 million swiped from fighting the war in Afghanistan in order to finance planning to fight one in Iraq that nobody knows about yet. Then thereâs the lying about when the decision to go to war was actually made (January 2003, not March 2003); George Tenet assuring a skeptical President that the C.I.A.âs case for W.M.D. is a "slam-dunk"; the briefing of everybody (including Karl Rove, so he can reschedule fund-raiser dates) that the war is a goâwhich elicits a "whoopsie!" from Condi: We forgot to tell Colin. But the best, maybe, is giving Prince Bandar an advance peek at the ultra-secret Iraq war planânever mind that his helpful highness represents the home address of 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers. Who does this? As with everything else involved in driving the U.S. to a current total of nearly 700 K.I.A.âs and counting, Mr. "powerful, steamroller force" himself, Richard Cheney. (Just coincidence, of course, that the Vice President has a more than passing interest in a commodity that Saudi Arabia possesses more of than anyplace else on earth. And, no, itâs not sand.) Every good story requires a villain, and for Plan of Attackâthe best yarn to come along since, well, Mr. Woodwardâs first bookâthe author casts Mr. Cheney, whoâs so well suited to the part you can almost hear the Dracula music every time he tiptoes into the narrative. Thereâs all kinds of evil-doing your reviewer could tip you to, but that would spoil the fright. So letâs leave it at a single malefaction: Marines are approaching Tikrit, American kids are dying, and God knows how many Iraqi mothersâ sons. And who do you suppose decides itâs the perfect occasion for a celebratory dinner party? Clue: He lives in the same house Al Gore used to. Wife Lynne, no pansy herself, only has a walk-on, but itâs priceless. During a rushed swing through the Gulf States, Mr. Woodward writes, the Second Lady found herself lunching with the favorite wife of the Emir of Qatar. When do the children in Bahrain start school? asked Ms. Cheney, trying to make nice. Came the answer: This isnât Bahrain. As his tragic hero, Mr. Woodward has Colin Powell. The Secretary of Stateâs arguments about the lame-brainness of the impending enterprise canât be listened to because a) they have to be solicited first; b) nobody bothers to (including the Commander in Chief); and c) Mr. Powellâs not one to push. Whether this is due to military schooling or fear of career blemishes, Mr. Woodward doesnât say. The upshot, in any event, is that Mr. Powellâthe sole veteran of combat in an armchair posse itching for itâis left without much to do, other than enlist Congress and the U.N. in backing a war he privately believes will be catastrophic.
Though he notes that many of the Secretary of Stateâs dire forebodings (friendly Arab regimes undermined; oil prices sent stratospheric; Iraq left up to its elbows in Shia vs. Sunni blood) have yet to come to pass, Mr. Woodwardâa better friend to his source than vice versaâsympathizes, and allows Mr. Powell to roam through the chapters like Banquoâs ghost. We overhear him muttering about Donald Rumsfeld "wearing rubber gloves" so as to leave no fingerprints; about the "Gestapo" that is the Pentagonâs Office of Special Plans; about the "lunatic" notions of Paul Wolfowitz (who, to be fair, has them aplenty). One wishes that Mr. Woodward had provided some background history. Thereâs a long, well-documented record (ignored by liberal admirers) of St. Colin being wrong. Remember the Bosnia intervention, perhaps the Clinton administrationâs greatest foreign-policy success? Mr. Powell thought it idiotic. Thereâs also a parallel record of incidents when he had to choose between satisfying his masters or hewing to conviction: Each time he elected to lap-dog, with self-excusing paeans to duty. As Michael Steinberger points out in this monthâs The American Prospect, whether the humiliation is North Korea, the Kyoto Protocol, the A.B.M. Treaty or the Middle East, resignation on principle is not in Colin Powellâs vocabulary. Compare Mr. Powellâs behavior with General Tommy Franksâ first set-to with Donald Rumsfeld over the ways and means of conquering supposedly unconquerable Afghanistan. According to Mr. Woodward, the general said: "Mr. Secretary, stop. This ainât going to work. You can fire me. Iâm either the commander or Iâm not, and youâve got to trust me or you donât. And if you donât, I need to go somewhere else. So tell me what it is, Mr. Secretary." Suffice it to say that a modus vivendi was reached soon thereafter. Mr. Woodwardâs liking for General Franks is evident, and the CENTCOM commander repays it with juicy quotes like this one, on hearing that Washington wants him to draw up a plan for war in Iraq, while heâs in the midst of fighting one in Afghanistan: "Goddam," General Franks said, "what the fuck are they talking about?" (Not a bad subtitle.) We hear a lot about and from General Franks in Plan of Attack, including point-by-point details of his endless, Rumsfeld-ordered revisions of the Iraq war plan, down to the exact number of slides he brings to each presentation. And every time he drags out the projector and the briefing books, you gasp, How did Woodward get this stuff? Who gave him what General So-and-So said about Iraq to the eavesdropping whizzes at the National Security Agency, an outfit so "black" the joke is that N.S.A. stands for "No Such Agency"? The secret-ferreting doesnât stop there. Mr. Woodward invites the reader along when an Arabic-speaking C.I.A. spook nicknamed "Tim" slips across the Turkish border into Iraq with a truck full of loot to recruit spies. "They were carrying tens of millions of dollars in U.S. $100 bills stored in black Pelican boxes, heavy cardboard boxes with hinges that are often sold in art stores," Mr. Woodward recounts. "Tim had to sign for his share. In the end he had been advanced $32 million, and he would have to present vouchers to account for it all. Yellow, 3-by-3 Post-its signed by the paid agents would suffice, he hoped. When the others lost sight of Timâs vehicle on the way in, they joked that he probably was heading for the Riviera. Tim had found that $1 million in $100 bills weighed 44 pounds and fit neatly into a day backpack." When Timâs investment produces senior Iraqi military officers spilling big beans, Mr. Woodward reports the reaction of his handler thus: "âHoly shit!â Saul muttered. "If it is 50 percent bullshit, weâve still hit a goldmine.â" Howâs that for up close and personal? Timâs chief, the basketball-metaphoring Mr. Tenet, does not come off so well, for all the widely advertised reasons. Need more? Mr. Woodward reveals that Mr. Tenet now and again dropped by the White House mess for a jocular nosh with Karl Rove. Whatâs the Director of Central Intelligence doing courting the Presidentâs top political operative? Mr. Woodward doesnât say. A guess: keeping his job. Thereâs a groaning board of such canapés served with Plan of Attackâs main course, several too delectable to miss. A White House scene to savor: Nick Calio, head of the White House Congressional lobbying reporting to the President that the Senate is about to "vitiate" a filibuster holding up the vote on the Homeland Security bill. "âNicky, what the fuck are you talking about, vitiate?â Bush asked." And the Yale flunk-out Vice President? He didnât know what it meant, either. Another tasty morsel: what State Department director of policy planning Richard Haass tells Colin Powell after Time runs an apparently White Houseâsanctioned story that Mr. Powell is hopelessly out of the loop: "It sucks. The only thing that would have been worse would have been if it had showed you were in charge. Then you would have been totally fucked." Yet another: George Tenetâs sum-up of British intelligenceâs assessment of the time required for Saddam to launch a C.B.W. strike: "they-can-attack-in-45-minutes shit." A final delicacy: George Bushâs reaction to the same information? He uses it in a speech. Large incident and small, this is the craft of a journalist without peerâand for you old George readers, that comes from someone who was throwing everything but the kitchen sink at him just a few years ago. To be sure, some will pick nits. They will say that Mr. Woodwardâs abjuring of footnotes vitiates documentationâa quirk that has occasioned flak since "Deep Throat" went unnamed (a blank Mr. Woodward promises to fill in once the chain-smoking Deep is deceased). But, like Tommy Franks, either you trust him or you donât, and the track record shouts that you should. Remember the pooh-poohing that greeted the Oval Office scene in The Final Days of Nixon kneeling in prayer with Kissinger? Remember the omelets on pusses when Dr. Kissinger later confirmed Mr. Woodwardâs account? Besides, the sort of information Mr. Woodward unearths (i.e., the kind no one else gets) wouldnât be available for shoveling if he ran around tattling. Plan of Attack, like all its predecessors, demonstrates yet again why Mr. Woodward is in no danger of winning a style prize. Carl Bernstein was the man with the golden pen, and without him, Mr. Woodwardâs prose is reminiscent of a 1940 Ford turning over on a frigid morning. A graduate of the Joe Friday "Just the facts, maâam" school, Mr. Woodward is parsimonious as wellâsometimes maddeningly soâwith personal opinion. But that is part of the power of his work. He simply lays it out, unvarnished, and leaves it to you to decide what to make of it. What to make of Plan of Attack? Letâs ask Condi Rice (whoâll be lucky to land an adjunct professorship at Pepperdine if Iraq continues to quagmire). Pausing from her Augean Stables duties on the talk shows this weekend, Ms. Rice had this to say about the latest writer to burden her with a manure fork: "I havenât read Bobâs book, which Iâm sure is terrific. Heâs a great journalist and I look forward to reading it â¦. Iâm sure it will be fantastic." Sheâs got that right. Robert Sam Anson reviews books regularly for The Observer. You may reach Robert Sam Anson via email at: rsanson@observer.com.
The interview with B Woodward on Bush. Read the excerpts and visit the link. CBS- 60 Minutes- âPlan of Attack,â ( http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004...ain612067.shtml ) http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31484