Decision ‘08

The New Woodward Series Begins Today

Bob Woodward is not always a hero to either the right or the left. His biggest flaw is that he willingly plays the mouthpiece to Washington insiders with an agenda. His biggest strength is the same thing. Everyone in Washington knows that Woodward is going to air dirty laundry and the contents of what were assumed to be private conversations; because of that, almost everyone in Washington gives him access and an interview to at least get their side on the record. As an example, Woodward’s last three books, including his latest, The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008, are often highly critical of President Bush, yet President Bush has given Woodward lengthy interviews for each one, interviews that are, of course, often self-serving, but still revealing.

All of the above is merely my way of saying, love him or hate him, he’s worth reading. And you can do it for free! At least, you can read excerpts for free, starting today in the Washington Post. The initial installment is briefer than I would like, but it focuses on tension in 2006 between President Bush and General George Casey, Jr., the commander in Iraq who preceded Petraeus, as Iraq plunged into violent chaos. Casey believed the way to victory was to hand over power to the Iraqis as soon as possible and leave, while Bush was coming to believe that it was going to take a strong hand and more troops to get the situation under control as the Iraqis were not ready or were unwilling to come to grips with the severity of the problem.

The ironic thing to me is that it appears from the excerpt that Woodward is showing sympathy to Casey (i.e., he’s serving as his mouthpiece most of the time), but in this case, at least, Casey was wrong and the President was right.

Of course, the big ‘reveal’ of the book is that we apparently spied on Iraq’s leadership. I say apparently, because I haven’t read that portion of the book yet or the excerpts, but it probably happened, and it appears that, despite their public display of outrage and surprise, the Iraqis probably knew or at least suspected it. The book also “headlines” Woodward’s opinion that the surge was not the primary factor in the turnaround of U.S. fortunes, but rather was a factor among four, the most important being new covert techniques he is not at liberty to discuss:

“…[G]roundbreaking” new covert techniques enabled U.S. military and intelligence officials to locate, target and kill insurgent leaders and key individuals in extremist groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Woodward does not disclose the code names of these covert programs or provide much detail about them, saying in the book that White House and other officials cited national security concerns in asking him to withhold specifics.

Overall, Woodward writes, four factors combined to reduce the violence: the covert operations; the influx of troops; the decision by militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to rein in his powerful Mahdi Army; and the so-called Anbar Awakening, in which tens of thousands of Sunnis turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq and allied with U.S. forces.

Well, we’ve known all along that the surge was only one factor in the turnaround, but I still maintain that without it, the other factors might not have come about…

4 Responses to “The New Woodward Series Begins Today”

1 skippystalin Says:
September 7th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Actually, Bush wasn’t interviewed for State of Denial. That’s why it turned out so friendly to the administration and awesome to read.
2 Chris J. Breisch Says:
September 7th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Yawn.

Pardon me for hijacking your thread in the very first post, Mark.

But I’m just wondering how long it is before there’s a very LOUD outcry on the lefty blogs demanding that Biden be replaced with Hillary. Obama now trails in Gallup by three and is tied in Rasmussen.
3 Mark Says:
September 7th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Hey, no problem. I get the message: you’re not interested…but others may be, and variety is the spice of life! Actually, I’m waiting on blogging on the latest polls until Monday, when all the polling will be post-convention…
4 Chris J. Breisch Says:
September 7th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Actually, I’m just disinterested in anything that Woodward writes anymore. His books are dominated by entirely too much speculation and entirely too few facts.