THE WAR WITHIN--BOOK REVIEW

THE WAR WITHIN BY BOB WOODWARD; PUBLISHED BY SIMON &SCHUSTER; PAGES 487; PRICE U S $ 32/-
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The decline and fall of President Richard Nixon was the result of the patient work of two young journalists—Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. Much water has flown down the Potomac since Nixon and we are currently witness to the darkest days in American History under President Bush. One of the two enterprising journalists mentioned above, Bob Woodward has become the historian of the Bush era with four books to his credit on this period.

Bob Woodward has worked for The Washington Post since 1971. He, with Bernstein bagged the Pulitzer Prize for the reporting on the Watergate scandal. Woodward was described as “the best pure reporter of his generation, perhaps ever.” and “the most celebrated journalist of our age.” He has established himself as the best reporter of our time. He may be the best reporter of all time.

The question of what sort of wartime President George Bush has been runs through Woodward’s latest book which is the fourth in his running account of the Bush government’s conduct of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The series began with a generally positive assessment of Bush the President in “Bush at War” and has moved down to levels of disenchantment in “Plan of Attack” and ‘State of Denial”. The weight of evidence, given in the latest volume results in a verdict that is distinctly unhappy.

The heart of the book under review deals with the conception and execution of "the Surge," the infusion of additional U.S. troops that appears to have stabilized the security situation in Iraq, creating an opportunity for President Nouri Maliki's government to begin to assert itself. The success of this strategic shift is a significant issue in the current presidential campaign.

The book states that Bush’s decision in January 2007 to send about 30,000 more troops to Iraq—the Surge—was not the primary factor behind the step drop in violence. According to Woodward four factors that reduced the violence were covert operations, the military build-up, anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada-al-Sadr’s decision to rein in his Mahdi Army and the “Anbar Awakening” in which Sunnis joined Americans in fighting Al-Quaida in Anbar province in western Iraq.
More important is a hyper-secret new programme that has allowed U.S. forces to identify, locate and kill huge numbers of the insurgency's leaders, including members of al Qaeda. When military and White House officials learned that Woodward knew of the secret program, they asked that he withhold any details because publication would endanger the operation and compromise its use elsewhere. White House has come out openly against Woodward and challenged his version. The author argues that the diminution of violence in Iraq owes a great deal to the so-called Anbar Awakening, in which the tribal sheiks in that crucial Sunni-dominated province have turned on al Qaeda and aligned themselves with the U.S. and the new central government. Woodward points out that the success in Anbar began long before the Surge with the Marines' successful counterinsurgency efforts on the Syrian border. The result of those efforts reached critical mass at about the time the surge began.
A second front in the war rages at the highest levels of the Bush administration. Woodward delineates for us the tensions, secret debates, distrust and determination within the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the Intelligence Agencies and the U.S. Military headquarters in Baghdad. What is provided is a lucid account of the distress and uncertainty within the Bush administration from 2006 to date.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff conduct a secret enquiry and Bush too conducts a secret strategy review that keeps the military out. The administration’s strategy reviews continue in secret, partly because public disclosure would harm Republicans in the November 2006 elections for Congress. The book provides an exhaustive account of the struggles of Gen, Petraeus, who has taken over in Iraq during the bleakest and most violent periods of the war.
After the Democratic gains that November, Bush's doggedly loyal National Security Adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, convened a secret White House task force that cut the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Pentagon out of the loop and went to retired military generals -- mainly the Army's former vice chief of staff, Gen. Jack Keane -- for strategic advice. It was a decision that, according to Woodward, has left America's top military commanders demoralized ever since. The result of Stephen Hadley’s secret consultations was the Surge, a concept the Joint Chiefs had opposed from the start. In essence, their argument was that, even if the Surge succeeded in reducing violence, the U.S. might end up a loser because it would increase the Iraqis' dependence on American military forces. Even Petraeus, who emerges from Woodward's account as a formidable and honorable warrior, agreed on that point. He met privately with Bush immediately after his Senate confirmation. The President called his decision to order the surge "a double down.". Petraeus responded "Mr. President, this is not double down,This is all in." The Surge, sent 30,000 additional soldiers and marines to Iraq to bolster basic security in Iraq in the hope of creating conditions conducive to political reconciliation in Iraq. The result, according to Gen. Petraeus is “fragile and reversible”.
Woodward has harsh things to say about Bush’s leadership style. “For at least seven months during 2006 Bush had known that the existing strategy in Iraq was not working. No matter how he tried to dress it up with positive language, and sugarcoating 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 Defence Rumsfield, Gen.Pace or Gen.Casey about the need for change.For years, time and again, President Bush has displayed impatience, bravado and unsettling personal certainty about his decisions. 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.”
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 such as al-Queda, the Sunni insurgency, and renegade Shia militias.”
Bob Woodward’s book is indispensable reading for those interested in the Iraq war and the bumbling and dangerous leadership provided by President George Bush militias.” It is journalism at its peak."
P.P.Ramachandran