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| The (Zionist) Men from JINSA and CSP article which appeared in "The Nation" magazine:
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http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&c=4&s=vest | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2002 8:26 am Post subject: A Struggle for the President's Heart and Mind |
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A Struggle for the President's Heart and Mind
Powell Journeyed From Isolation to Winning the Argument on Iraq
By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 17, 2002; Page A01
This is the first of three days of excerpts from the book "Bush At War" copyright 2002 by Bob Woodward, Simon & Schuster.
In early August, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell made the diplomatic rounds in Indonesia and the Philippines and, as always, kept in touch with what was happening at home. Iraq was continuing to bubble. Brent Scowcroft, the mild-mannered national security adviser to President Bush's father, had declared on a Sunday morning talk show Aug. 4 that an attack on Iraq could turn the Middle East into a "cauldron and thus destroy the war on terrorism."
Blunt talk, but Powell basically agreed. He had not made clear his own analysis and conclusions to the president and realized he needed to do so. On the long flight back, from nearly halfway around the world, he jotted down some notes. Virtually all the Iraq discussions in the National Security Council had been about war plans -- how to attack, when, with what force levels, military strike scenario this and military strike scenario that. It was clear to him now that the context was being lost, the attitude and views of the rest of the world that Powell knew and lived with. His notes filled three or four pages.
During the Persian Gulf War, when he had been chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Powell had played the role of reluctant warrior, arguing to the first President Bush, perhaps too mildly, that containing Iraq might work, that war might not be necessary. But as the principal military adviser, he hadn't pressed his arguments that forcefully because they were less military than political. Now as secretary of state, his account was politics -- the politics of the world. He decided he had to come down very hard, state his convictions and conclusions so there would be no doubt as to where he stood. The president had been hearing plenty from Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, a kind of A-team inside the war cabinet. Powell wanted to present the B-team, the alternative view that he believed had not been aired. He owed the president more than PowerPoint briefings.
In Washington, he told Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, that he wanted to see the president.
It had been a long, hard road that brought Powell to make that request. During his first months as secretary of state, he never really closed the personal loop with Bush, never established a comfort level -- the natural, at-ease state of closeness that both had with others.
Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser, felt Powell was beyond political control and operating out of a sense of entitlement. "It's constantly, you know, 'I'm in charge, and this is all politics, and I'm going to win the internecine political game,' " Rove said privately. Rove, for one, thought Powell had somehow lost a step, and that it was odd to see him uncomfortable in the presence of the president.
Even after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Powell at times was isolated politically, and the White House kept him off the television talk shows. Powell and his deputy and closest friend, Richard L. Armitage, joked privately that Powell had been put in the "icebox" -- to be used only when needed.
In early October 2001, the White House called Armitage and asked him to make the rounds on the television talk shows. He had little interest in appearing, and he politely declined. When they pressed, Armitage went to Powell and said, "Look, that's not my deal."
"Nah, I'm in the icebox again," Powell replied. Maybe because he was pushing to release a white paper detailing evidence against Osama bin Laden. "We've got to get the story out, so go do it," he told Armitage.
On Oct. 3, Armitage dutifully appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" and CNN's "Live This Morning."
One of Powell's greatest difficulties was that he was more or less supposed to pretend in public that the sharp differences in the war cabinet did not exist. The president would not tolerate public discord. Powell was also held in check by his own code -- a soldier obeys.
Bush might order, Go get the guns! Get my horses! -- all the Texas, Alamo macho that made Powell uncomfortable. But he believed and hoped that the president knew better, that he would see the go-it-alone approach did not stand further analysis. Hopefully, the success in the first phase of the war in Afghanistan had provided the template for that understanding.
The ghosts in the machine in Powell's view were Rumsfeld and Cheney. Too often they went for the guns and the horses.
A Nearly Impossible Mission
In the spring of 2002, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict became so violent that it threatened to overwhelm the war on terrorism. The president said he wanted to send Powell to the Middle East to see if he could calm things down. Powell was reluctant. He said he didn't have much to offer, too little leverage with either side.
We are in trouble, the president told Powell. "You're going to have to spend some political capital. You have plenty. I need you to do it."
"Yes, sir," Powell said.
He went to the region, made little headway and after 10 days was preparing his departure statement that proposed an international conference and security negotiations.
Rice called Armitage at the State Department to ask him to tell Powell to scale back his statement, make less of a commitment about future negotiations. There were real concerns that Powell was going too far.
In Washington, Armitage was almost chained to his desk so he could talk to Powell between his meetings. It was midnight, 7 a.m. in Jerusalem, when Armitage explained Rice's concerns.
Powell went nuts. Everybody wanted to grade papers! he said. No one wanted to step up, face reality! They wanted to be pro-Israel and leave him holding the Palestinian bag by himself. They had sent him out on a nearly impossible mission.
While Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell were meeting in the Middle East, sources in the office of Vice President Cheney were trying to get Powell from leaning too much toward Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Reuters
"I'm holding back the [expletive] gates here," Armitage reported. "They're eating cheese on you" -- an old military expression for gnawing on someone and enjoying it. People in the Defense Department and the vice president's office were trying to do him in, Armitage said. He had heard from reliable media contacts that a barrage was being unloaded on Powell. He was leaning too much to Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader. The White House was going to trim Powell's sails; he was going to fail. Armitage said he couldn't verify who was leaking this, but he had names of senior people in Defense and in Cheney's office.
"That's unbelievable," Powell said. "I just heard the same thing." He had had cocktails with some reporters traveling with him, and they reported that their sources in Cheney's office were declaring he had gone too far, was off the reservation, and about to be reined in.
"People are really putting your [expletive] in the street," Armitage said.
Rice reached Powell and said all the others thought it was best he say nothing more, and announce that he was going back to Washington to consult with the president.
Powell, who had been engaged in a grueling diplomatic shuttle, erupted. Was he just supposed to say, thank you very much for your hospitality, good-bye!
Rice said she was worried that he was committing the president and the administration more deeply than they all wanted.
Guess what? Powell countered. They were already in. They couldn't launch an initiative with a high-profile presidential speech like the one Bush had given in the Rose Garden on April 4, and not expect to propose some plan or follow-up. But he agreed to trim back on his statement.
Powell was up to about 3 a.m. writing his remarks, knowing that he was out at the end of a long stick.
On April 17, he made his departure statement in Jerusalem. It was 20 paragraphs of Powell at his diplomatic best -- smooth, upbeat, even eloquent. He was able to dress it up and point toward a negotiated future, while avoiding mention of his failure to get a cease-fire.
It didn't make much of a splash. He hadn't solved the Middle East problem; there was no breakthrough. But it settled some things down for the moment, and the president later thanked him.
Face Time, and Headway
Powell still had not squared his relationship with the president. During the first half of 2002, Armitage had received reliable reports that Rumsfeld was requesting and having periodic private meetings with Bush. Powell was not particularly worried, because he could usually find out what had transpired through Rice, though she had had difficulties initially finding out herself.
"It seems to me that you ought to be requesting some time with the president," Armitage suggested to Powell. Face time was critical, and it was a relationship that Powell had not mastered.
Powell said he recalled his time as national security adviser for Reagan when everyone was always trying to see the president. He didn't want to intrude. If Bush wanted to see him, any time or any place, he was, of course, available. He saw Bush all the time at meetings, and he was able to convey his views.
"You've got to start doing it," Armitage said. Powell was the secretary of state. It wouldn't be an imposition. Better relations would help in all the battles, would help the department across the board.
In the late spring of 2002 -- some 16 months into the Bush presidency -- Powell started requesting private time with Bush. He did it through Rice, who sat in on the meetings that took place about once a week for 20 to 30 minutes. It seemed to help, but it was like his experience in the Middle East: no big breakthroughs.
As President Bush addressed the United Nations, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, left, followed along. Reuters
During the summer, Powell was over at the White House one day with time to kill before a meeting with Rice. The president spotted him and invited him into the Oval Office. They talked alone for about 30 minutes. They shot the breeze and relaxed. The conversation was about everything and nothing.
"I think we're really making some headway in the relationship," Powell reported to Armitage afterward. The chasm seemed to be closing. "I know we really connected."
The Big Picture and a Breakthrough
It was in this context that Bush invited Powell and Rice to the White House residence on the evening of Monday, Aug. 5, to discuss Iraq. The meeting expanded into dinner and then moved to the president's office in the residence.
Powell told Bush that as he was getting his head around the Iraq question, Bush needed to think about the broader issues, all the consequences of war.
With his notes by his side, a double-spaced outline on loose-leaf paper, Powell said the president had to consider what a military operation against Iraq would do in the Arab world. He dealt with the leaders and foreign ministers in these countries as secretary of state. The entire region could be destabilized -- friendly regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan could be put in jeopardy or overthrown. Anger and frustration at America abounded. War could change everything in the Middle East.
It would suck the oxygen out of just about everything else the United States was doing, not only in the war on terrorism, but also in all other diplomatic, defense and intelligence relationships, Powell said. The economic implications could be staggering, potentially driving the supply and price of oil in directions that were as-yet unimagined. All this in a time of an international economic slump. The cost of occupying Iraq after a victory would be expensive. The economic impact on the region, the world and the United States domestically had to be considered.
Following victory, and Powell believed they would surely prevail, the day-after implications were giant. What of the image of an American general running an Arab country for some length of time? he asked. A General MacArthur in Baghdad? This would be a big event within Iraq, the region and the world. How long would it last? No one could know. How would success be defined?
"It's nice to say we can do it unilaterally," Powell told the president bluntly, "except you can't." A successful military plan would require access to bases and facilities in the region, overflight rights. They would need allies. This would not be the Gulf War, a nice two-hour trip from a fully cooperative Saudi Arabia over to Kuwait City -- the target of liberation just 40 miles away. Now the geography would be formidable. Baghdad was a couple of hundred miles across Mesopotamia.
The Middle East crisis was still ever-present. That was the issue the Arab and Muslim world wanted addressed. A war on Iraq would open Israel to attack by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who had launched Scud missiles at it during the Gulf War.
Hussein was crazy, a menace, a real threat, unpredictable, but he had been largely contained and deterred since the Gulf War. A new war could unleash precisely what they wanted to prevent -- Hussein on a rampage, a last desperate stand, perhaps using his weapons of mass destruction.
On the intelligence side, as the president knew, the problem was also immense, Powell said. They had not been able to find Osama bin Laden, Mohammad Omar and other al Qaeda and Taliban leaders in Afghanistan. They didn't know where Hussein was. He had all kinds of tricks and deceptions. He had an entire state at his disposal to hide in. They did not need another possibly fruitless manhunt.
Powell's presentation was an outpouring of both analysis and emotion that encompassed his entire experience -- 35 years in the military, former national security adviser and now chief diplomat. The president seemed intrigued as he listened and asked questions but did not push back that much.
President Bush, with Powell, appeared in the White House Rose Garden reacting to the United Nation's vote on Iraq. Associated Press
And Powell realized that his arguments begged the question of, well, what do you do? He knew that Bush liked, in fact insisted on, solutions, and Powell wanted to take his views all the way down the trail. "You can still make a pitch for a coalition or U.N. action to do what needs to be done," he said. International support had to be garnered. The United Nations was only one way. But some way had to be found to recruit allies. A war with Iraq could be much more complicated and bloody than the war in Afghanistan, which was Exhibit A demonstrating the necessity of a coalition.
The president said he preferred to have an international coalition, and he loved building one for the war in Afghanistan.
Powell responded that he believed the pitch could still be made to the international community to build support.
What did he think the incentives and motives might be of some of the critical players, such as the Russians or the French, the president asked. What would they do?
As a matter of diplomacy, Powell said he thought the president and the administration could bring most countries along.
The secretary felt the discussion became tense several times as he pressed, but in the end he believed that he had left nothing unsaid.
The president thanked him. It had been two hours -- nothing of Clintonesque, late-night-at-the-dorm proportions, but extraordinary for this president and Powell. And Powell felt he had stripped his argument down to the essentials. The private meeting with just Bush and Rice had meant there was not a lot of static coming in from other quarters -- Cheney and Rumsfeld.
Rice thought the headline was, "Powell Makes Case for Coalition as Only Way to Assure Success."
"That was terrific," Rice said the next day in a phone call to Powell, "and we need to do more of those."
The tipoff about the potential importance of the evening was when White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. also called the next day and asked Powell to come over and give him the same presentation, notes and all.
The dinner was a home run, Powell felt.
Public Speculation, Private Decisions
Bush left for his Crawford, Tex., working vacation the next afternoon, as Iraq continued to play to a packed house in the news media. There was little other news, and speculation about Iraq filled the void. Every living former national security adviser or former secretary of state who could lift pen to paper was on the street with his or her views.
On Wednesday, Aug. 14, the principals -- Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice and CIA Director George J. Tenet -- met in Washington without the president.
Powell said they needed to think about getting a coalition for action against Iraq, some kind of international cover at least. The Brits were with us, he noted, but their support was fragile in the absence of some international coalition or cover. They needed something. Most of Europe was the same way, he reported, as was all of the Arabian peninsula, especially the U.S. friends in the Gulf region who would be most essential for war. And Turkey, which shared a 100-mile border with Iraq.
The first opportunity the president would have after his vacation to formally address the subject of Iraq was a scheduled speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 12, Powell pointed out. There had been talk about making the speech about American values or the Middle East. But Iraq was Topic A. "I can't imagine him going there and not speaking about this," Powell said.
Rice agreed. In the atmosphere of continuing media discussion, not to talk about Iraq might suggest that the administration was not serious about Hussein's threat, or that it was operating in total secrecy. And Bush liked to explain to the public at least the general outlines of where his policy was heading.
They discussed how they would face an endless process of debate and compromise and delay once they started down the U.N. road -- words, not action.
"I think the speech at the U.N. ought to be about Iraq," Cheney said, but the United Nations ought to be made the issue. It should be challenged and criticized. "Go tell them it's not about us. It's about you. You are not important." The United Nations was not enforcing more than a decade of resolutions ordering Hussein to destroy his weapons of mass destruction and allow weapons inspectors inside Iraq. The United Nations was running the risk of becoming irrelevant and would be the loser if it did not do what was necessary.
Rice agreed. The United Nations had become too much like the post-World War I League of Nations -- a debating society with no teeth.
They all agreed that the president should not go to the United Nations to ask for a declaration of war. That was quickly off the table. They all agreed that a speech about Iraq made sense. But there was no agreement about what the president should say.
Continued on Page 2 | | | | Guest | | Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2002 8:50 am Post subject: A Struggle for the President's Heart and Mind |
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Continued from Page 1
Two days later, Friday, Aug. 16, the NSC met, with the president participating by secure video from Crawford. The sole purpose of the meeting was for Powell to make his pitch about going to the United Nations to seek support or a coalition in some form. Unilateral war would be tough, close to impossible, Powell said. At least they ought to try to reach out and ask other countries to join them.
The president went around the table asking for comments, and there was general support for giving the United Nations a shot -- even from Cheney and Rumsfeld.
Fine, Bush finally said. He approved of the approach -- a speech to the United Nations about Iraq. And it couldn't be too shrill, he cautioned them, or set so high a standard that they wouldn't seem serious. He wanted to give the United Nations a chance.
Powell walked out feeling they had a deal, and he went off for a vacation in the Hamptons.
'Let Me Think About Powell'
When I specifically asked about Powell's contributions during an interview on Aug. 20, four days later, the president offered a tepid response. "Powell is a diplomat," Bush responded. "And you've got to have a diplomat. I kind of picture myself as a pretty good diplomat, but nobody else does. You know, particularly, I wouldn't call me a diplomat. But, nevertheless, he is a diplomatic person who has got war experience."
Did Powell want private meetings? I asked.
"He doesn't pick up the phone and say, 'I need to come and see you,' " Bush said. He confirmed that he did have private meetings with Powell that Rice also attended. "Let me think about Powell. I got one. He was very good with [Pakistani President Pervez] Musharraf. He single-handedly got Musharraf on board. He was very good about that. He saw the notion of the need to put a coalition together" for the war in Afghanistan.
Vacationing in Long Island, Powell picked up the New York Times on Aug. 27 and was astonished by what he read. "Cheney Says Peril of a Nuclear Iraq Justifies Attack," said the headline of the lead story. The vice president had given a hard-line speech the day before, declaring that weapons inspections were basically futile. "A return of inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever of his compliance with U.N. resolutions," Cheney had said. "On the contrary, there is a great danger that it would provide false comfort that Saddam was somehow 'back in his box.' "
In the hands of a "murderous dictator," Cheney said, weapons of mass destruction are "as grave a threat as can be imagined. The risks of inaction are far greater than the risk of action." Cheney's speech was widely interpreted as administration policy. The tone was harsh and unforgiving. It mentioned consultations with allies but did not invite other countries to join a coalition.
To Powell, it seemed like a preemptive attack on what he thought had been agreed to 10 days earlier -- to give the United Nations a chance. In addition, the swipe at weapons inspections was contrary to Bush's yearlong assertions that the next step should be to let the weapons inspectors back into Iraq. That was what everyone -- the United Nations and the United States -- had been fighting with Hussein about since 1998, when he had kicked the inspectors out.
The day after Cheney's speech, Rumsfeld met with 3,000 Marines at Camp Pendleton in California. "I don't know how many countries will participate in the event the president does decide that the risks of not acting are greater than the risks of acting," Rumsfeld said. Powell could decode this: Cheney had asserted that the risks were in not acting, and Rumsfeld had said he didn't know how many countries would join if the president agreed with Cheney. Rumsfeld also said that doing the right thing "at the onset may seem lonesome" -- a new term for acting alone, in other words, unilateralism.
To make matters worse, the BBC began releasing excerpts of an earlier interview that Powell had done in which he had said it would be "useful" to restart the weapons inspections. "The president has been clear that he believes weapons inspectors should return," Powell had said. "Iraq has been in violation of many U.N. resolutions for most of the last 11 or so years. And so, as a first step, let's see what the inspectors find. Send them back in."
News stories appeared saying that Powell contradicted Cheney, or appeared to do so. Suddenly, Powell realized that the public impression of the administration's policy toward inspectors in Iraq was the opposite of what he knew it to be. Some editorial writers accused Powell of being disloyal. He counted seven editorials calling for his resignation or implying he should quit. From his perspective all hell was breaking loose. How could I be disloyal, he wondered, when I'm giving the president's stated position?
Following the United Nations Security Council's unanimous approval of a new resolution ordering Iraq to submit to weapons inspections, President Bush praised Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Associated Press
When Powell returned from his vacation, he asked for another private meeting with the president. Rice joined them over lunch on Sept. 2, Labor Day, as Powell reviewed the confusion of August. Was it not the president's position that the weapons inspectors should go back into Iraq?
Bush said it was, though he was skeptical that it would work. He reaffirmed that he was committed to going to the United Nations to ask for support on Iraq. In a practical sense that meant asking for a new resolution. Powell was satisfied as he left for South Africa to attend a conference.
By Friday evening, Sept. 6, Powell was back, and he joined the principals at Camp David without the president.
Cheney argued that to ask for a new resolution would put them back in the soup of the United Nations process -- hopeless, endless and irresolute. All the president should say is that Hussein is bad, has willfully violated, ignored and stomped on the U.N. resolutions of the past, and the United States reserves its right to act unilaterally.
But that isn't asking for U.N. support, Powell replied. The United Nations would not just roll over, declare Hussein evil, and authorize the United States to strike militarily. The United Nations would not buy that. The idea was not saleable, Powell said. The president had already decided to give the United Nations a chance, and the only way to do that was to ask for a resolution.
Cheney was beyond hell-bent for action against Hussein. It was as if nothing else existed.
Powell attempted to summarize the consequences of unilateral action. He would have to close American embassies around the world if they went alone.
That was not the issue, Cheney said. Hussein and the blatant threat were the issue.
Maybe it would not turn out as the vice president thought, Powell said. War could trigger all kinds of unanticipated and unintended consequences.
Not the issue, Cheney said.
The conversation exploded into a tough debate, dancing on the edge of civility but not departing from the formal propriety that Cheney and Powell generally showed each other.
The next morning the principals had an NSC meeting with the president. They did a rerun of the arguments, and Bush seemed comfortable asking the United Nations for a resolution.
But during the speech-drafting process, Cheney and Rumsfeld continued to press. Asking for a new resolution would snag them in a morass of U.N. debate and hesitation, they said, opening the door for Hussein to negotiate with the United Nations. He would say the words of offering to comply but then, as always, stiff everyone.
So the request for a resolution came out of the speech. Meetings on the drafting continued for days. The speech assailed the United Nations for not enforcing the weapons inspections in Iraq, specifically for the four years since Hussein had kicked them out.
"You can't say all of this," Powell argued, "without asking them to do something. There's no action in this speech.
"It says, 'Here's what he's done wrong; here's what he has to do to fix himself,' and then it stops?" Powell asked in some wonderment. "You've got to ask for something."
So the principals then had a fight about what to ask for. They finally agreed that Bush should ask the United Nations to act.
Powell accepted that, since the only way the United Nations really acted was through resolutions. So that was the implied action. Calling for a new resolution would have really nailed it, but the call to "act" was sufficient for Powell.
Bush's Words to the U.N.
Two days before the president was to go to the United Nations, Powell reviewed Draft No. 21 of the speech text the White House had sent him with EYES ONLY and URGENT stamped all over it. On Page 8, Bush promised to work with the United Nations "to meet our common challenge." There was no call for the United Nations to act.
At a principals' committee meeting without the president just before Bush left for New York, Cheney voiced his opposition to having the president ask specifically for new resolutions. It was a matter of tactics and of presidential credibility, the vice president argued. Suppose the president asked and the Security Council refused? Hussein was a master bluffer. He'd cheat and retreat, find a way to delay what was required. What was necessary was getting Hussein out of power. If he attacked the United States or anyone with the weapons of mass destruction available to him -- especially on a large scale -- the world would never forgive them for inaction and giving in to the impulse to engage in semantic debates in U.N. resolutions.
Vice President Cheney joined President Bush and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice for an Oval Office briefing by Colin L. Powell. Frank Johnson - The Post
Rumsfeld said they needed to stand on principle, but he then posed a series of rhetorical questions, and did not come down hard about the language.
Cheney and Powell went at each other in a blistering argument. It was Powell's internationalism versus Cheney's unilateralism.
"I don't know if we got it or not," Powell told Armitage later.
The night before the speech, Bush spoke with Powell and Rice. He had decided he was going to ask for new resolutions. At first he thought he would authorize Powell and Rice to say after his speech that the United States would work on them with the United Nations. But he had concluded he might as well say it himself in the speech. He liked the policy headline to come directly from him. He ordered that a sentence be inserted near the top of Page 8, saying he would work with the U.N. Security Council for the necessary "resolutions." It was added to the next and final draft, No. 24.
"He's going to have it in there," Powell reported to Armitage.
At the podium in the famous General Assembly hall, Bush reached the portion of the speech where he was to say he would seek resolutions. But the change hadn't made it into the copy that was put into the TelePrompTer. So Bush read the old line, "My nation will work with the U.N. Security Council to meet our common challenge."
Powell was reading along with Draft No. 24, penciling in any ad-libs that the president made. His heart almost stopped. The sentence about resolutions was gone! He hadn't said it! It was the punch line!
But as Bush read the old sentence, he realized that the part about resolutions was missing. With only mild awkwardness he ad-libbed it, saying later, "We will work with the U.N. Security Council for the necessary resolutions."
Powell breathed again.
The president's speech was generally a big hit. It was widely praised for its toughness, its willingness to seek international support for his Iraq policy, and its effective challenge to the United Nations to enforce its own resolutions. It was a big boost for Powell, who stayed behind in New York to rally support for the policy, especially from Russia and France, who as permanent members of the Security Council could veto any resolution.
The next day Iraq announced that it would admit new weapons inspectors. Few believed it was sincere. See, Cheney argued, the United States and the United Nations were being toyed with, played for fools.
Bush believed a preemption strategy might be the only alternative if he were serious about not waiting for events. The realities at the beginning of the 21st century were two: the possibility of another massive, surprise terrorist attack similar to Sept. 11, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction -- biological, chemical or nuclear. Should the two converge in the hands of terrorists or a rogue state, the United States could be attacked, and tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of people could be killed.
In addition, the president and his team had found that protecting and sealing the U.S. homeland was basically impossible. Even with heightened security and the national terrorist alerts, the country was only marginally safer. The United States had absorbed Pearl Harbor and gone on to win World War II. For the moment, the country had absorbed Sept. 11 and gone on to win the first phase of the war in Afghanistan. What would happen if there were a nuclear attack, killing tens or hundreds of thousands? A free country could become a police state. What would the citizens or history think of a president who had not acted in absolutely the most aggressive way? When did a defense require an active offense?
Bush's troubleshooter, Condi Rice, felt the administration had little choice with Hussein.
"The lesson of September 11: Take care of threats early," she said.
But the president proceeded as if he were willing to give the United Nations a chance, and his public rhetoric softened. Instead of speaking only about regime change, he said his policy was to get Iraq to give up its weapons of mass destruction. "A military option is not the first choice," Bush told reporters on Oct. 1, "but disarming this man is."
In a speech to the nation Monday, Oct. 7, the one-year anniversary of the commencement of the military strikes in Afghanistan, the president said that Hussein posed an immediate threat to the United States. As Congress debated whether to pass its own resolution authorizing the use of force against Hussein, Bush said war was avoidable and not imminent. "I hope this will not require military action," he said.
This was all a victory for Powell, but perhaps only a momentary one. The scaled-down rhetoric did mean that the president could say no to Cheney and Rumsfeld, but it did not mean a lessening of Bush's fierce determination. As always, it was an ongoing struggle for the president's heart and mind.
On Nov. 8, the U.N. Security Council approved a new resolution, 15 to 0, ordering Iraq to admit weapons inspectors. In a Rose Garden statement, the president praised Powell "for his leadership, his good work and his determination over the past two months."
Mark Malseed contributed to this report. | | | | Guest | | Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2002 9:08 am Post subject: Iraq on His Mind |
| washingtonpost.com
Iraq on His Mind
At Home in Texas, Bush Ponders New Risks
Tuesday, November 19, 2002; Page A14
This report is adapted from an interview for the book, "Bush at War," an inside account of the debate within the Bush administration that led to U.S. military action in Afghanistan and the decision to confront Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Simon & Schuster ©2002 by Bob Woodward.
After my interview with President Bush the morning of Aug. 20, the president offered a tour of his ranch. We walked outside, and he climbed behind the wheel of his pickup truck and motioned me toward the passenger side. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice and a female Secret Service agent squeezed into the cramped passenger back seat. Barney, his Scottie dog, parked himself between us in the front and was soon in his master's lap.
We wound slightly down from the flatlands into a small valley, where surprising rock formations probably 60 to 100 feet high could be seen in the distance. The president took each turn in the gravel road slowly, savoring the expanse. He provided a commentary on the trees and land, the deep forest areas and open plains.
He noted downed trees that would need to be chopped up or patches of forest that seemed to be thriving, or where he himself had cleared cedars, a nonnative tree that takes precious water and light from nearby oaks and other hardwoods.
He seemed to have a particular destination in mind as he tucked the truck into a hidden corner of trees and stopped. We got out, having come perhaps two miles across his property. Rice said she was not going to get out because she did not have the right shoes. The Secret Service agent did not follow, so the president and I walked alone toward a wooden bridge about 20 yards away.
As we crossed it, a giant limestone rock formation maybe 40 yards across loomed above us, nearly white in color, shaped like a half-moon, with a steep overhang.
It looked as if a mammoth seashell had grown out of the Texas canyon. A tiny natural waterfall tumbled from the center of the overhang. The rock looked ancient, as old as the Roman catacombs. The air had a sweet, pungent smell that I could not identify. Bush started tossing rocks at the overhang, and I briefly joined in.
As we walked back, Bush again brought up Iraq. His blueprint or model for decision making in any war against Iraq, he told me, could be found in the story I was attempting to tell -- the first months of the war in Afghanistan and the largely invisible CIA covert war against terrorism worldwide.
"You have the story," he said. It was all there if it was pieced together -- what he had learned, how he had settled into the presidency, his focus on large goals, how he made decisions, why he provoked his war cabinet and pressured people for action.
I was straining to understand the meaning of this. At first, this remark and what he had said before seemed to suggest he was leaning toward an attack on Iraq.
Earlier in the interview, however, he had said, "I'm the kind of person that wants to make sure that all risk is assessed. But a president is constantly analyzing, making decisions based upon risk, particularly in war -- risk taken relative to what can be achieved." What he wanted to achieve seemed clear: He wanted Saddam Hussein out.
Before he got back in his truck, Bush added another piece to the Iraq puzzle. He had not yet seen a successful plan for Iraq, he said. He had to be careful and patient.
"A president," he added, "likes to have a military plan that will be successful."
-- Bob Woodward | | | | Guest | | Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2002 9:34 am Post subject: Woodward at War |
| washingtonpost.com
Woodward at War
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 19, 2002; 8:45 AM
When Bob Woodward publishes, people listen.
And argue.
And get angry.
Which is pretty much what's happening over "Bush at War."
A Woodward book is a publishing event, and has been since the Redford-Hoffman days of "All the President's Men," through books on the high court, Belushi, the Gulf War, Quayle, the '96 campaign and the inner workings of the Bush White House.
But Woodward's role has changed over the years. The young Metro reporter knocking on doors of lower-level aides is now one of Washington's premier insiders, with access to the highest councils of power. Once he helped topple a president; now he sits at the ranch in Crawford for presidential interviews.
A major criticism of Woodward's work has been that those who cooperate tend to get starring, and often favorable, roles in his narratives. He's also been accused of having grown soft on the powerful, a charge that was heard after a Washington Post series he co-authored last year made the Bush team look strong and decisive after 9/11.
(Occasionally there are flaps over the accuracy of The Post editor's accounts, such as his controversial deathbed interview with William Casey, but that has been less of an issue in recent years as Woodward has more openly served as a White House chronicler.)
Woodward's response has been that he double- and triple-checks his material by interviewing multiple sources and using participants' notes when possible. He does seem to come up with the kind of anecdotes that no one else gets.
"There were no leaks as such," Woodward told Larry King. "No one was calling me. I was calling them. . . . It's a very slow, tedious process." One source – Bush – has bestowed a nickname: "Woody."
An interesting media note from the book: At a senior staff meeting last fall, Bush expressed his pique at the media for a string of "quagmire" pieces in the early days of the war in Afghanistan:
"'They don't get it,' the president said. 'How many times do you have to tell them it's going to be a different type of war? And they don't believe it. They're looking for the conventional approach. That's not what they're going to see here. I've talked about patience. It's amazing how quickly people forget what you say, at least here in Washington.' The quagmire stories made little sense to him. They had a good plan."
But the same excerpt shows that Bush's own inner circle had doubts about whether the plan would work.
The debate over Woodward invariably extends to who cooperated with the author, and why. Some Clintonites were said to be in the doghouse after feeding Woodward material for his books. Mike McCurry once got into a public spat with him after declaring that he'd been Woodward's "babysitter" and telling the author that "you fell into the trap of relying too heavily on those people we set up to deal with you." Woodward called that "absurd."
Now another Woodward source is taking some incoming. National Review's David Frum – a former Dubya speechwriter – aims his poison pen at the secretary of state:
"Colin Powell should have been fired Sunday – literally. . . . Like Woodward's book on the Gulf War, The Commanders, Bush at War is essentially an edited transcript of Powell leaks, all of them calculated to injure this administration and undermine its policies on the very eve of military action against Iraq.
"For more than a year, we've been reading nasty little stories in the papers about Karl Rove, Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld and condescending stories about President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice. Careful readers have understood that these stories emanated from the State Department – but until now, Powell has taken care to protect his personal deniability. Now he has abandoned that polite pretense.
"In the Woodward piece, Powell scorns the president for his 'Texas, Alamo macho.' Powell complains with Senate Democrats that acting against Iraq 'would suck the oxygen' out of the anti-terror campaign. He denigrates Rice, snidely observing that 'she had had difficulties' keeping up with what Bush was doing. When the president over-rules him, Powell complains that he thought he had a 'deal' – as if cabinet members bargain with their president rather than taking orders from him. Powell repeatedly praises himself or repeats the praise of others: We learn from him about a personal call from Rice in which she compliments one of his presentations as 'terrific,' and we hear via Woodward that Powell is 'smooth, upbeat . . . eloquent.' Amazingly, Powell even manages to insert into this long uncontrolled soliloquy of accusation against his colleagues a complaint that they sometimes leak against him!
"'[Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage] had heard from reliable media contacts that a barrage was being unloaded on Powell. . . . The White House was going to trim Powell's sails; he was going to fail. Armitage said he couldn't verify who was leaking this, but he had names of senior people in Defense and in Cheney's office. "That's unbelievable!" Powell said.'
"There is no sin in a cabinet officer dissenting from the policies of his president. Nor is it necessarily wrong for him to take his dissent to the country. But before he makes his dissent public, he should resign – and if he won't resign, he should be sacked. Instead of representing the United States to the world, Powell sees his job as representing the world to the United States. It's time for him to go."
Of course, the president was also an on-the-record source for Woodward.
Salon's Joe Conason sees the Powell fingerprints very differently:
"Whether or not you're an admirer of Bob Woodward's post-Watergate journalism, don't skip the Washington Post series culled from his new book. Despite the reporter's usual opacity and vague sourcing, it is clear enough that his chief source among many is again Colin Powell (indeed 'Bush at War' might as well have been titled 'The Commanders: A Sequel'). And from Powell's point of view, Woodward reveals important details of the White House struggle over Iraq, what went wrong in Afghanistan and what kind of president George W. Bush really is.
"Toward the bottom of last Friday's table-setting story on the Woodward book by Mike Allen, for example, the reader learns that Bush was 'preoccupied by public perceptions of the war, looking at polling data from Rove, now his senior adviser, even after pretending to have no interest.' How remarkable to be told so bluntly about this Bush obsession – after hearing so many blabbermouths on cable TV and in opinion columns insist that this president, unlike his predecessor, 'doesn't care about polls.'
"The difference between Clinton and Bush isn't that one doesn't care about polls and the other did. The difference is that Clinton never pretended that polling data wasn't part of his political work, and didn't expect anyone on his staff to lie about such trivia. (This matrix of deception is likewise exposed in Woodward's scoop about the back-channel advice on public opinion provided to the White House by Fox News chief Roger Ailes. An old Bush family employee, Ailes runs a network that frequently promotes the false but uplifting notion that Bush has no interest in polls.)"
Slate's Chatterbox columnist, Tim Noah, picks up the Ailes issue, including the Fox man's denial:
"Bob Woodward's new book, Bush at War, contains an anecdote that puts a serious dent in Fox News' claim to be scrupulously nonpartisan. ('We report. You decide.') According to Woodward, shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks Roger Ailes sent Bush's chief political aide, Karl Rove, a confidential memo. Ailes had previously been a media adviser to George H.W. Bush. But 'Ailes was not supposed to be giving political advice,' Woodward notes, because he was now running Fox News. According to Woodward, the memo's 'back-channel message' was that Bush had to convey to the American public that he was taking the harshest possible actions. If he did so, the public would agree to be patient about when to retaliate.
"Ailes now says Woodward has it wrong. Here is what he had to say in a prepared statement:
"'Bob Woodward's characterization of my memo is incorrect. In the days following 9/11, our country came together in nonpartisan support of the president. During that time, I wrote a personal note to a White House staff member as a concerned American expressing my outrage about the attacks on our country. I did not give up my American citizenship to take this job.'
"It isn't obvious what part of Woodward's characterization Ailes finds 'incorrect.' He admits he sent the note ('to a White House staff member,' presumably Rove) and gets huffy about any insinuation that it was improper to do so. Chatterbox thinks Ailes is saying that in his note he expressed outrage but didn't tell Bush what to do. So how did the note read?
"'Dear Karl: The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were a goddamned outrage. All best, Roger.' That seems unlikely. No, Chatterbox's money is on Woodward. The only real question is whether Ailes' advice was as pompous and banal as Woodward makes it sound or whether it contained unrevealed subtleties.
"For the record, Chatterbox is not at all shocked that Ailes gave Bush advice. It's certainly possible to be a journalist and have opinions – even partisan ones – at the same time. Chatterbox is rather irritated, though, that Ailes was a sneak about his exchange with Rove and that even now he won't answer reporters' inquiries truthfully."
Ailes was plenty steamed, telling The Post: "Woodward got it all screwed up, as usual. The reason he's not as rich as Tom Clancy is that while he and Clancy both make stuff up, Clancy does his research first." And Woodward said of the old Nixon adviser: "It's the Watergate spin apparatus that is still in play with Ailes. You know what? President Bush has gotten beyond that."
By the time he appeared on the King show, Woodward said that Ailes, a "gentleman," had called him and "there really is no factual dispute between Ailes and myself on this."
On to the Hill, where the partisan wrangling continues:
"House Majority Whip Tom DeLay yesterday threatened to call the House back to Washington if Senate Democrats stripped Republican-backed provisions from the homeland security bill," the Washington Times reports.
"The Texas Republican accused Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat, of 'obstruction' in the face of a Nov. 5 electoral mandate for President Bush's policy. . . .
"Senate Democrats want to delete from the House bill provisions that, among other things, would protect vaccine makers against lawsuits. Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, announced yesterday that he would vote with Democrats to strip the long-delayed bill of the provisions."
The Wall Street Journal says Bush wants to kick-start the economy:
"Trying to capitalize on electoral successes, the president's economic advisers are debating a wide range of tax cuts for individuals and businesses, including moving up to 2003 the tax breaks for families that were scheduled to take effect later on.
"A strong economy is critical for Mr. Bush as he prepares for the 2004 election season, and he has made clear that he is worried that the recovery is faltering. . . . In an effort to woo Democrats, targeted tax cuts for lower-income workers may also become part of the package. . . . But administration officials worry that a stimulus bill could get ensnared in the slow-moving Senate, where Republicans lack a filibuster-proof majority of 60 votes."
You'll be reading that sentence many, many times in the coming months.
That was quite an eye-opener in the Atlantic Monthly – picked up at length in Sunday's New York Times – about how the seemingly vigorous JFK was often in severe pain and taking up to eight medications a day. None of this was made public at the time – Kennedy and his people lied – and William Safire, the old Nixon hand, is offended. From The Times:
"What else is there in the taxpayer-subsidized Kennedy Library that might provide students of history material that goes beyond the transcripts and adulatory movies showing a crisp, alert president saving the world from missiles in Cuba?
"During the 70's firestorm about secret taping in the Nixon White House, hoots of derision were aimed at Nixonites who protested lamely that 'everybody did it.' I was told that the J.F.K. loyalist Dave Powers destroyed tapes of telephone conversations on the president's private line. Frankly, only prurient interest is served by further documentation of indiscretions; wide coverage of that did not discourage a subsequent president.
"More significant are 100 hours of tapes – recorded secretly in the Oval Office and Cabinet Room by history-minded J.F.K. – known to be under lock and key."
The most immediate denunciations of Gore for embracing government-run health insurance has come from those journalists who have lived under such a system. Such as former Bush speechwriter David Frum, a Canadian, in National Review:
"Brave – or tone-deaf.
"But let's not talk politics: Let's talk about the merits of the idea. No question, single-payer has many appealing virtues. It is amazingly hassle-free. No Canadian thinks about health insurance before switching jobs. The self-employed get the same treatment as the employees of the country's biggest bans. There are few forms to fill out, no waiting for checks in the mail. If you are sick, you go to the doctor or hospital, flash your card, and get your medicine.
"Or rather – you wait for your medicine. And wait. And wait. How long can you wait?
"Every year Canada's leading free-market think-tank, the Fraser Institute, compiles waiting times across Canada in a report called 'Waiting Your Turn.' Here are some highlights from this year's edition.
"Median waiting time for radiation treatment for breast cancer in province of Ontario: 8 weeks
"Median waiting time for angioplasty in the province of British Columbia: 12 weeks
"Median waiting time for radiation treatment for prostate cancer in province of Quebec: 12 weeks
"Median waiting time for cataract removal in the province of Ontario: 20 weeks.
"Median waiting time for cataract removal in the province of Saskatchewan: 52 weeks.
"Median waiting time for a tonsillectomy in the province of Saskatchewan: 80 weeks."
And British import Andrew Sullivan, who says of Gore:
"Maybe he should take a look at yet another story from Britain's vaunted National Health Service. Here's a testimony from a man who is still attached to the idea of collectivist healthcare, but who saw what it means when it mattered most. He needed urgent radiotherapy for a brain tumor. Nuh-huh:
"'[T]he best estimate I could get from the NHS was a six week wait. I have medical insurance through my employer and I am lucky enough to now have started privately arranged treatment on Wednesday, less than two weeks after my diagnosis. There are thousands of cases like mine every year in this country and most will not have that option.'
"Notice that in Britain, if you actually need good care, you have to both pay higher taxes and get private insurance – for healthcare inferior to much that is available here. This is what Al Gore wants to bring to America. At least now we know."
Speaking of Gore, Liza Mundy, author of a Post Magazine piece on the ex-veep, had this to report in an online chat yesterday:
"I don't know how he reacted to the story itself, but he did call me, at home, quite angry because the Post had published a few quotes from it in a Friday news article that also included excerpts from the Barbara Walters interview. He saw this as a violation of an embargo and blamed me personally. He said that he hadn't read the article but heard it 'wasn't very good.' The Gore camp has promised a lot of different interviews to a lot of different news organizations, and are working very hard to control the news cycle." | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2002 9:49 am Post subject: Re: For the Links Embedded in the above Article: |
| | Anonymous wrote: | | http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A9158-2002Nov19?language=printer |
Zionist David Frum is mentioned in the above article and wrote the infamous Bush Jr. speech which mentioned the "Axis of Evil" countries which are interestingly mentioned as well in the the following "Men from JINSA and CSP" article that appeared in "The Nation" magazine this past September, 2002:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&s=vest&c=1 | | | | Guest | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
