Woodward: Bush misleads about violence in Iraq, troops attacked every 15 minutes

Do we have to first believe him, in order to be technically 'mislead'?

 

Funny how Woodward used to be on Bush's side in his other books, and now has done a complete 180 degree turn. Damned Liberal Media!

 

Same ol Same ol. Everyone is wrong, but Bush. You would think that his loyal followers might wondersometimes if this is true.

Interesting about Kissinger. I often think that for many of the war backers , including some of this board, that this is basically a refighting of the Vietnam War which they think would have turned out well if it wasn't for the media, the draft and protestors.

Well the media was subservient for several years including Woodward, who has been disgraced in the Plame Affair; they classify as secrets any government reports contradicting the pres that all is fine; they don't have a draft so only about 5% of the country is really personally involved in the war; the decision maker's kids dont go; protest has really been pretty mild. This still doesn't change the problem that the clear majority of the Iraqis hate us and the fightiing is not going well.

In theory Bush could reinstitute a draft, send several times more troops, raise taxes and really go at it, but that is tough when the clear majority does not support the war. Stuck.

Chickenhwawks like Bush find it easy to be philospohical and patient in theorizing it might all go well somehow in the long run.

 

Glad Woodward is finally speaking out. Wasn't his first book initially, sort of a response to the Richard Clarke book? Glad he agrees that the Bush administration is nothing but BS rhetoric.

 

BTW, some talking head on Fox just said "firing Rumsfeld would be a victory for the democrates and, quite frankly, the jihadists." I sh*t you not. I almost fell out of my chair laughing.

 

Hell, Bush could have started by not starting the damned Iraq adventure to begin with, but having been that idiotic, you would think the man would not cut taxes during a war, much less do the obvious thing, raise them to pay for it. This has truly been one of the most, if not the most bizarre wars in American history. Simply bizarre. And the Bush toadies here never say a word, not a peep about the endless tax cuts, the endless babbling about how well things are going, when the truth it obvious to everyone but them.

Thank goodness there isn't a draft. I thought I was going to Canada and lucked out. With the current Canadian government, I'd have to look elsewhere to take my son out of harms way, when he would be old enough in 3 years. The draft would be the worst possible idea. Raise taxes, and pay our people in uniform what they deserve. Don't even think about a draft. I know why you want one, glynch, because it would raise holy hell with the general public. I'd rather keep our professional military. Unlike supporters of Bush and the GOP leadership, I'm willing to pay for it.

Woodward really turns my stomach, to tell you the truth. If he had opened his eyes 2 books ago, maybe it could have made a difference. The man is very late to the party.



Keep D&D Civil.

 

I believe this topic came up in a recent thread...

9/13...

 

The worst part is the denial of the problem destroys any chance for a solution.
-
*stands on soapbox*

Iraq is ready to fall apart at the seams, we only have enough troops to hold the fort for the moment. It's not fair to the troops to send them to the middle of nowhere and risk their lives in hundreds of firefights, drive past countless IED's, and to do so for years now. It's not a question of do you have the resolve to stay as long as it takes, but you can't fail our troops... our heros by leading them nowhere. Failing to raise an Iraqi army and police force, is not an option here. The alternatives are a permanent U.S. presence which we simply can't afford, to allow Iraq to fend for itself... which is great for the Iranians I guess.
Or to limp along trying to get Iraq on it's feet while under constant, disruptive violence.
I guess latter is the plan we're sticking to, but it's not going so well.. and until we wake up to that reality we can't make it right. Einstein said, "the definition of insanity was to do the same thing and expect different results" which sums up our Iraqi mess perfectly.

Just one more time, nice and loud... It's wrong and despicable to have those men over there, fighting, dying, missing years of life with family, while failing to stablize Iraq, watching things get worse, and to not decisively change that reality. They deserve to come home victorious, and more importantly, to come home. Whatever the answer in Iraq is, our leadership isn't doing enough to find it and it's just not acceptable to me.

 

Good observation RocketMan. I just read on Slate that this is what makes Woodward's criticism so damning. Bush cannot dismiss it as partisan hackery when Woodward gave Bush poitical cover in his first two books.

 

Woodward is a follower and not a leader with his opinions. When Bush was still doing ok in the polls and had defeated Kerry he was writing books supporting him.

Then when Bush's numbers have gone down, Woodward wrote this book. If the recent poll bounce that Bush has gotten would have been while Woodward was in the process of writing a book, it would have been another favorable one.

 

he's kind of right. rummys "incompetence" (i believe he is not imcompetent, but rather evil - everything going bad is all by design) is one of the jihadists best allies. get someone in there who actually wants to defeat them and they have a problem.

rummy is one of the terrorists greatest assets.

 

Is it just possible that Woodward hasn't "opened his eyes" with this book, nor was he awed by George Bush's splendor with his first two? That maybe he's writing what the facts indicate at the time he has access to them?

Dude is a fairly legendary journalist and he might just be striving for, you know, objectivity.

 

Just FYI, I was involved in that discussion. There's no doubt that OPEC *could* do it. But there would be very public evidence of it. In the example above, you'd have a spike in production levels. The point was that we haven't seen anything of the sort. While it can be done, it can't be done behind the scenes (which was the idea in that thread)) and it wasn't done as far as the recent drop in prices goes.

The oil market is priced based on the information traders have. If there was a spike in production, the only way for that to lower prices is for the traders (ie, the public) to know that.

 

IIRC Kissinger was against the intervention in Iraq. It's interesting that some people, even posters on the bbs are reflighting Vietnam. Chickenlittle's find it easy to be doomsayers and panicky in proclaiming it can never work out.

 

Hayes, if you're going to make goofy statements like this, at least spell the word right... it's refighting, not reflighting. I think some of your so-called "chicken-littles," are showing more sense than another avian creature, the ostrich. Be sure and keep the sand out of your ears!



Keep D&D Civil.

 

No, I meant reflighting as in preparing to run off to Canada.

Now c'mon, Deckard. I know we don't agree on this subject, but I'd be disappointed if you thought I was uninformed.

 

Not uninformed, Hayes, but stubbornly sticking your head in the sand in order to ignore the disaster unfolding in Iraq. Heck, I'm sure you are fully formed!





Keep D&D Civil.

 

Bob Woodward: Bush Misleads On Iraq
NEW YORK, Oct. 1, 2006(CBS) President Bush's former chief of staff, Andy Card, said the Bush presidency will be judged by three things: “Iraq, Iraq, Iraq.” Bob Woodward, of Watergate fame, has just completed his third book on the Bush presidency, “State of Denial.”

Woodward spent more than two years, interviewed more than 200 people including most of the top officials in the administration and came to a damning conclusion. He tells Mike Wallace that for the last three years the White house has not been honest with the American public.

"It is the oldest story in the coverage of government: the failure to tell the truth," Woodward charges.

Asked to explain what he means that the Bush administration has not told the truth about Iraq, Woodward says, "I think probably the prominent, most prominent example is the level of violence."

Not just the growing sectarian violence — Sunnis against Shias that gets reported every day — but attacks on U.S., Iraqi and allied forces. Woodward says that’s the most important measure of violence in Iraq, and he unearthed a graph, classified secret, that shows those attacks have increased dramatically over the last three years.

"Getting to the point now where there are eight, 900 attacks a week," he says. "That’s more than 100 a day—that is four an hour. Attacking our forces."

Woodward says the government had kept this trend secret for years before finally declassifying the graph just three weeks ago. And Woodward accuses President Bush and the Pentagon of making false claims of progress in Iraq – claims, contradicted by facts that are being kept secret.

For example, Woodward says an intelligence report classified secret from the Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded in large print that "THE SUNNI ARAB INSURGENCY IS GAINING STRENGTH AND INCREASING CAPACITY, DESPITE POLITICAL PROGRESS."

And “INSURGENTS RETAIN THE CAPABILITIES TO…INCREASE THE LEVEL OF VIOLENCE THROUGH NEXT YEAR.”

But just two days later a public defense department report said just the opposite. “Violent action, will begin to wane in early 2007,” the report said.

What does Woodward make of that?

"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.

"Why is that secret? The insurgents know what they’re doing. They know the level of violence and how effective they are. Who doesn’t know? The American public," he adds.

"President Bush says over and over as Iraqi forces stand up, U.S. forces will stand down. The number of Iraqis in uniform today I understand is up to 300,000?" Wallace asks.

"They’ve stood up from essentially zero to 300,000. This is the military and the police," Woodward replies.

"But, U.S. forces are not standing down. The attacks keep coming," Wallace remarks.

"They’ve stood up and up and up and we haven’t stood down, and it’s worse," Woodward replies.
John Negorponte knows it’s worse. He’s the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, and according to Woodward, Negroponte thinks the U.S. policy in Iraq is in trouble – that violence is now so widespread that the U.S. doesn’t even know about much of it; and that the killings will continue to escalate.

"He was the ambassador there in Iraq and now he sees all the intelligence," Woodward says. "I report he believes that we’ve always going almost back to the beginning, miscalculated and underestimated the nature of the insurgency."

Why?

"There’s this feeling, 'How can a bunch guys running around putting improvised explosive devices in dead animals and by the side of the road in cars, cause all this trouble," Woodward says.

Woodward reports that a top general says Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has so emasculated the joint chiefs that the chairman of the chiefs has become “the parrot on Rumsfeld’s shoulder.”

And, according to Woodward, another key general, John Abizaid, who’s in charge of the whole Gulf region, told friends that on Iraq, Rumsfeld has lost all credibility.

"What does that mean, he doesn’t have any credibility anymore?" Wallace asks.

"That means that he cannot go public and articulate what the strategy is. Now, this is so important they decide," Woodward explains. "The Secretary of State Rice will announce what the strategy is. This is October of last year." She told Congress the U.S. strategy in Iraq is "clear, hold and build."

"Rumsfeld sees this and goes ballistic and says, 'Now wait a minute. That’s not our strategy. We want to get the Iraqis to do these things.' Well it turns out George Bush and the White House liked this definition of the strategy so it’s in a presidential speech he’s gonna give the next month," Woodward tells Wallace. "Rumsfeld sees it. He calls Andy Card, the White House chief of staff and says 'Take it out. Take it out. That’s not our strategy. We can’t do that.' Card says it’s the core of what we’re doing. That’s two and a half years after the invasion of Iraq. They cannot agree on the definition of the strategy. They cannot agree on the bumper sticker."

"General John Abizaid, commander of all U.S. forces in the Middle East, you quote him as saying privately a year ago that the U.S. should start cutting its troops in Iraq. You report that he told some close Army friends, quote, 'We’ve gotta get the f out.' And then this past March, General Abizaid visited Congressman John Murtha on Capitol Hill," Wallace says.

"John Murtha is in many ways the soul and the conscience of the military," Woodward replies. "And he came out and said, 'We need to get out of Iraq as soon as it’s practical' and that sent a 10,000 volt jolt through the White House."

"Here’s Mr. Military saying, 'We need to get out,'" Woodward continues. "And John Abizaid went to see him privately. This is Bush’s and Rumsfeld’s commander in Iraq," Woodward says.

"And John Abizaid held up his fingers, according to Murtha, and said, 'We’re about a quarter of an inch apart, said, 'We’re that far apart,'" Woodward says.

"You report that after George W. Bush was reelected, his chief of staff, Andy Card, tried for months to convince the president to fire Don Rumsfeld. Why?" Wallace asks.

"To replace him. Because it wasn’t working. Card felt very strongly that the president needed a whole new national security team," Woodward says.

"You write Laura Bush was worried that Rumsfeld was hurting her husband. Andy Card told her the president seemed happy with Rumsfeld. And the first lady replied, quote, 'He’s happy with this but I’m not.' And later she said, 'I don’t know why he’s not upset,'" Wallace remarks.

"What’s interesting, Andy Card, as White House chief of staff every six weeks set up a one on one meeting with Laura Bush. Set aside an hour and a half to talk about what’s going on, what are the president’s anxieties? Smart meeting," Woodward explains. "And in the course of these sessions the problem with Rumsfeld came up. And she voiced her concern about the situation."

But Dick Cheney wanted Rumsfeld to stay. Why?

"Well, Rumsfeld’s his guy," Woodward says. "And Cheney confided to an aid that if Rumsfeld goes, next they’ll be after Cheney."
Cheney stunned Woodward by revealing that a frequent advisor to the Bush White House is former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who served Presidents Nixon and Ford during the Vietnam War.

"He’s back," Woodward says. "In fact, Henry Kissinger is almost like a member of the family. If he’s in town, he can call up and if the president’s free, he’ll see him."

Woodward recorded his on-the-record interview with Cheney, and here’s what the vice president said about Henry Kissinger’s clout: "Of the outside people that I talk to in this job I probably talk to Henry Kissinger more than just about anybody else. He just comes by and I guess at least once a month," Cheney tells Woodward. "I sit down with him."

Asked whether the president also meets with Kissinger, Cheney told Woodward, "Yes. Absolutely."

The vice president also acknowledged that President Bush is a big fan of Kissinger.

"Now, what’s Kissinger’s advice? In Iraq, he declared very simply:
'Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy.' This is so fascinating. Kissinger’s fighting the Vietnam War again. Because in his view the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will. That we didn’t stick to it," Woodward says.

He says Kissinger is telling the president to stick to it, stay the course. "It’s right out of the Kissinger playbook," Woodward says.

In his book, published by CBS sister company, Simon & Schuster, Woodward reports that the first President Bush confided to one of his closest friends how upset he is that his son invaded Iraq.

"The former President Bush is said to be in agony, anguished, tormented by the war in Iraq and its aftermath," Wallace says.

"Yes," Woodward replies.

Asked if the former president conveys that message to his son, Woodward says, "I don’t know the answer to that. He tells it to Brent Scowcroft, his former national security advisor."

"You paint a picture, Bob, of the president as the cheerleader-in-chief. Current reality be damned. He’s convinced that he’s gonna succeed in Iraq, yes?" Wallace asks.

"Yes , that’s correct," Woodward says.

Woodward interviewed President George W. Bush for the first two books for hours.

"And do you know what? There are people who are gonna say, look Woodward is savaging President Bush because he wouldn’t see him for this book," Wallace remarks.

Woodward says that's not true. "He did not, and I asked. And I made it very clear to the White House what my questions were, what my information was. What could he say? That the secret chart is not right?" Woodward says. "That these things that happened in these meetings didn’t occur? They’re documented. I talked to the people who were there. Your producer, Bob Anderson, has listened to the tapes of my interviews with people to make sure that it’s not just kind of right, but literally right. This is what occurred."

And Woodward says that no matter what has occurred in Iraq, Mr. Bush does not welcome any pessimistic assessments from his aides, because he’s sure that his war has Iraq and America on the right path.

"Late last year he had key Republicans up to the White House to talk about the war. And said, 'I will not withdraw even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me.' Barney is his dog," Woodward says. "My work on this leads to lots of people who spend hours, days with the president."

"And in most cases they are my best sources. And there is a concern that we need to face realism. Not being the voice that says, 'Oh no, everything’s fine,' when it’s not," Woodward adds.


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