'I Haven't Suffered Doubt'
Bush wanted to invade Iraq. What's striking, Bob Woodward's new book reports, is how little he discussed it with anyone
By Evan Thomas
Newsweek
April 26 issue - It was Monday, Jan. 13, 2003, and President George W. Bush had just told his secretary of State, Colin Powell, that he was going to war in Iraq. "You know you're going to be owning this place?" inquired Powell. According to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's new book, "Plan of Attack," Powell "wasn't sure whether Bush had fully understood the meaning and consequences of total ownership." No matter. Bush said something to the effect of "I think I have to do this," and Powell, in essence, saluted and carried on. The whole conversation took 12 minutes.
That's what passed for debate in the Bush war cabinet, at least as the White House is depicted by Woodward. Early press accounts about Woodward's latest behind-the-scenes narrative suggested that Bush kept even his closest advisers in the dark about his decision to go to war because he was afraid of leaks. The real news, however, is not that Bush was secretive about his war planning, but rather that there was so little consideration of the consequences. In Woodward's telling, Bush was deeply involved in the details of the invasion plans from the moment he first grabbed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's elbow in November 2001 and asked, "What kind of war plan do you have for Iraq?" But at no time did the president sit down with his war cabinet and debate whether the war on Iraq would distract from the war on terror—or whether the risk of postwar Iraq's becoming a failed state outweighed the reward of getting rid of Saddam Hussein. Woodward, Washington's premier investigative reporter since he and his colleague Carl Bernstein broke the Watergate story more than 30 years ago, has not lost his knack for opening up otherwise secretive government officials. (When Woodward calls, some Washington insiders anxiously joke, "you play or you pay.") While he does not name sources, Woodward apparently had access to all the main players and interviewed Bush for more than three hours. Woodward was criticized by some for painting too rosy a portrait of the president as a resolute and bold commander in chief in "Bush at War," his 2002 book about the president and his top advisers in the wake of 9/11. The picture that emerges this time is less flattering.
In Woodward's portrait, President Bush is single-minded, and possibly simple-minded, in his resolve. He seems to have relied more on divine guidance than the considered opinions of his top advisers. Bush told Woodward that as he approached the final decision to go to war, "I was praying for strength to do the Lord's will ... I'm surely not going to justify war based on God. Understand that. Nevertheless, in my case I pray that I be as good a messenger of His will as possible."
