Flop

A Heady Mix of Pride and Prejudice Led to War
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
New York Times

Published: April 19, 2004

In his engrossing new book, "Plan of Attack," Bob Woodward uses myriad
details to chart the Bush administration's march to war against Iraq. His
often harrowing narrative not only illuminates the fateful interplay of
personality and policy among administration hawks and doves, but it also
underscores the role that fuzzy intelligence, Pentagon timetables and
aggressive ideas about military and foreign policy had in creating momentum
for war.

The chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., describes the White House as trying
to perform a circus trick of straddling two horses, the horse of war and
the horse of diplomacy. It is a task, this book shows, that the White House
did with difficulty and at times a good deal of disingenuousness, with the
horse of war rapidly outpacing the horse of diplomacy. It is also a White
House committed to the "vision thing" in a big way (promoting risky,
sweeping ideas like exporting democracy and pre-emptive war) and the
avoidance of any perception of wimpiness, a White House in many ways
determined to avoid accusations once hurled at the president's father.

"Plan of Attack" reveals that President George W. Bush asked Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Nov. 21, 2001, to start a war plan for
Iraq, and to do so in secret because a leak could trigger "enormous
international angst and domestic speculation." Among the first to express
angst was Gen. Tommy Franks, who got the Iraq assignment while he was busy
prosecuting the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The book also reveals that the director of Central Intelligence, George
Tenet, told President Bush in December 2002 that intelligence about Iraq
possessing weapons of mass destruction was "a slam dunk," but later told
associates that he and the C.I.A. should have stated up front in that
fall's National Intelligence Estimate and other reports that the evidence
was not ironclad, that there was no smoking gun.

In addition "Plan of Attack" ratifies assertions made in two recent
controversial books. It corroborates the observation made by the former
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill (in Ron Suskind's book "The Price of
Loyalty") that Iraq was high on the Bush administration's agenda before
9/11, in fact from its very first days in office. And echoing accusations
made by the former counterterrorism czar Richard A. Clarke (in his book
"Against All Enemies"), it contends that prior to 9/11 Mr. Bush was
focusing on domestic issues and a large tax cut and had "largely ignored
the terrorism problem."

In the wake of Mr. Woodward's best-selling 2002 book "Bush at War" â€