I finished Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward's new book on Bush's Iraq planning last night. It was very thorough and well researched, but it was also very dry. Like last weeks fudge type dry. Overall he was even-handed in his coverage, in fact I would say that he was kind to Bush and his administration. The book painted a picture of Bush was an involved president, who is interested in what is going on, makes decisions and take the blame for his actions.
This picture is greatly at odds with other recent works (Against All Enemies, Worse than Watergate, Price of Loyalty) which argue that Cheney is the real President, that Bush is disconnected from both his job (spending most of his time in Crawford) and reality (not connecting with the reality of the situation in Iraq), that his administration is overly secretive and that his political administration is continuously in spin-mode and will never accept responsibility or blame.
Yes, the book does cite a $700M diversion from Afghanistan to Iraq to aid in war planning and provisioning. But it also argues that there was extensive planning for a post war Iraq. Very little bias, with perhaps a leaning to the right, or at least to giving the President the benefit of the doubt.
Posted by jherr at May 5, 2004 08:45 AMThanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
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