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All The President's Secrets?

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By FRITZ LANHAM

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 21, 2008

"The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008," by Bob Woodward (Simon & Schuster, $32)

"The War Within" brings to a close Bob Woodward's long-winded, four-volume chronicle of how after 9/11 the Bush administration launched first the war in Afghanistan, then the war in Iraq.

By 2006, as the bodies piled up in Baghdad and throughout Iraq, administration officials grudgingly and belatedly admitted the wheels had come off the wagon. What to do about a losing war precipitated an internal fight pitting those who favored the then-policy of drawing down U.S. troop levels in order to push the Iraqis into taking more responsibility against an emerging view that favored the opposite: more American troops.

We know who won that fight. The surge, as it came to be called (credit former Virginia senator and Iraq Study Group member Charles Robb with first using the phrase), sent 20,000 additional soldiers and Marines to Iraq with the mission of bolstering basic security in the hope of creating conditions for real political reconciliation among that country's warring factions.

The book ends more or less at the present moment, with security gains indisputable but, in the words of surge proponent Gen. David Petraeus, "fragile and reversible."

Woodward's forte, as a reporter, is the interview. Most of the information in this book, he tells us, came from lengthy sit-downs with 150 people, "including the president's national security team, senior deputies and other key players responsible for the intelligence, diplomacy and military operations in the Iraq War."

Most interviews were done on "background," meaning Woodward could use the information but could not identify the source by name.

He also had a lengthy on-the-record interview with President Bush (as he has done for the previous three war books).

Why do these powerful people talk to Bob Woodward? Because they know that his status as doyen of Washington press insiders means his account will become the first draft of history, and they want that version to be theirs.

It isn't that Woodward is an entirely uncritical interviewer. He poses hard questions. But his books often read as though he has simply typed up his tape-recorded interviews, with minimal effort to shape the material into an intellectually coherent narrative.

Yes, the book delivers lots of fly-on-the-wall information, but it moves at a glacial pace. So who's going to be happy with the shadow they cast on the first draft of history?

Stephen J. Hadley, for one. He replaced Condoleezza Rice as national security adviser when she moved to the State Department, and he played a key role in building a consensus for the surge.

Retired Gen. Jack Keane, for another. Working back channels, Keane lobbied successfully for a "clear, hold, build" counterinsurgency strategy to tamp down violence in Iraq, a strategy that would require additional U.S. troops. He also lobbied to have the counterinsurgency-minded Petraeus named U.S. commander in Iraq.

Looking not so good are Gen. George Casey, Petraeus' predecessor, and Casey's boss, Gen. John Abizaid. Both supported a policy that emphasized training Iraqi forces while simultaneously drawing down U.S. forces.

At bottom, Woodward isn't interested in passing judgment on the surge, although he clearly believes the dire situation in 2006 called for a dramatic change in direction.

"The outcome of the Iraq War, now in it sixth year, remains uncertain," he writes in the epilogue, stating the obvious.

Rather, he's interested in the process, in how grave decisions get made in the highest circles of government. Here he has harsh things to say about President Bush's leadership style.

"For at least seven months during 2006, President Bush had known that the existing strategy in Iraq was not working," Woodward writes. "No matter how he tried to dress it up with positive language and sugarcoat it to the American public, he was losing the war. But somehow he set no deadlines, demanded no hurry, avoided any direct confrontation with Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, General Pace, or General Casey about the need for change."

Later he disparages Bush's oft-expressed trust in his "gut" and his "instincts."

"For years, time and again, President Bush has displayed impatience, bravado and unsettling personal certainty about his decisions," Woodward writes. "The result has too often been impulsiveness and carelessness and, perhaps most troubling, a delayed reaction to realities and advice that run counter to his gut."

Readers naturally will be looking for blockbuster revelations in "The War Within." They'll be disappointed. Early news reports took note of Woodward's revelation that American intelligence has spied, apparently electronically, on Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki. But Woodward's account, which occupies only a page, is vague and hardly rises to blockbuster status.

More interesting is the disclosure that about May 2006, U.S. military and intelligence agencies launched a series of operations "that enabled them to locate, target and kill key individuals in extremist groups."

Military and intelligence officials requested Woodward reveal no details about these operations, but he does say they "were very possibly the biggest factor" in reducing violence in Iraq.

Fritz Lanham writes for the Houston Chronicle.

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