"The warning is described in 'State of Denial,' scheduled for publication on Monday by Simon & Schuster. The book says President Bush's top advisers were often at odds among themselves, and sometimes were barely on speaking terms, but shared a tendency to dismiss as too pessimistic assessments from American commanders and others about the situation in Iraq."As late as November 2003, Mr. Bush is quoted as saying of the situation in Iraq: 'I don't want anyone in the cabinet to say it is an insurgency. I don't think we are there yet.'
"Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is described as disengaged from the nuts-and-bolts of occupying and reconstructing Iraq -- a task that was initially supposed to be under the direction of the Pentagon -- and so hostile toward Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, that President Bush had to tell him to return her phone calls. The American commander for the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, is reported to have told visitors to his headquarters in Qatar in the fall of 2005 that 'Rumsfeld doesn't have any credibility anymore' to make a public case for the American strategy for victory in Iraq."
And here's a juicy tidbit: Bush and Cheney would not be interviewed.
"60 Minutes" also provides some tantalizing hints in a news release:
"According to Woodward, insurgent attacks against coalition troops occur, on average, every 15 minutes, a shocking fact the administration has kept secret. 'It's getting to the point now where there are eight, 900 attacks a week. That's more than a hundred a day. That is four an hour attacking our forces,' says Woodward.
"The situation is getting much worse, says Woodward, despite what the White House and the Pentagon are saying in public. 'The truth is that the assessment by intelligence experts is that next year, 2007, is going to get worse and, in public, you have the president and you have the Pentagon [saying], 'Oh, no, things are going to get better,' ' he tells Wallace. 'Now there's public, and then there's private. But what did they do with the private? They stamp it secret. No one is supposed to know,' says Woodward."
Could the book put to rest the argument by some critics that Woodward has become too cozy with those in power? Does he feel some obligation to scrutinize the administration more skeptically after having expressed regret for not more aggressively challenging the official line on Saddam's WMDs?
I wouldn't be surprised if both sides find ammunition in the book. Woodward's 2004 best-seller, "Plan of Attack," provided plenty of fodder for John Kerry's campaign with its details of how Bush was pushing ahead with Iraq war planning while claiming to be committed to U.N. diplomacy, and suggestions of a secret deal with Saudi Arabia. And yet the president's team liked the book so much that the Bush campaign recommended "Plan of Attack" on its Web site.
