Woodward on Bush on Iraq
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/28/60minutes/main2047607.shtml
Bob Woodward: Bush Misleads On IraqTells 60 Minutes About His Book
‘State Of Denial’
NEW YORK, Oct. 1, 2006
“It’s getting to the point now where there are eight-, nine-hundred
attacks a week. That’s more than 100 a day. That is four an hour
attacking our forces.”
- Bob Woodward
(CBS) President Bush’s former chief of staff, Andy Card, said the
Bush presidency will be judged by three things: “Iraq, Iraq,
Iraq.”Bob Woodward, of Watergate fame, has just completed his third
book on the Bush presidency, “State of Denial.”
Woodward spent more than two years, interviewed more than 200 people
including most of the top officials in the administration and came to
a damning conclusion. He tells Mike Wallace that for the last three
years the White house has not been honest with the American public.
“It is the oldest story in the coverage of government: the failure to
tell the truth,” Woodward charges.
Asked to explain what he means that the Bush administration has not
told the truth about Iraq,Woodward says, “I think probably the
prominent, most prominent example is the level of violence.”
Not just the growing sectarian violence — Sunnis against Shias that
gets reported every day — but attacks on U.S., Iraqi and allied
forces. Woodwardsays that’s the most important measure of violence in
Iraq, and he unearthed a graph, classified secret, that shows those
attacks have increased dramatically over the last three years.
“Getting to the point now where there are eight, 900 attacks a week,”
he says. “That’s more than 100 a day—that is four an hour. Attacking
our forces.”
Woodward says the government had kept this trend secret for years
before finally declassifying the graph just three weeks ago. And
Woodward accusesPresident Bush and the Pentagon of making false
claims of progress in Iraq – claims, contradicted by facts that are
being kept secret.
For example, Woodward says an intelligence report classified secret
from the Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded in large print that “THE
SUNNI ARAB INSURGENCY IS GAINING STRENGTH AND INCREASING CAPACITY,
DESPITE POLITICAL PROGRESS.”
And “INSURGENTS RETAIN THE CAPABILITIES TO…INCREASE THE LEVEL OF
VIOLENCE THROUGH NEXT YEAR.”
But just two days later a public defense department report said just
the opposite. “Violent action, will begin to wane in early 2007,” the
report said.
What does Woodward make of that?
“The truth is that the assessment by intelligence experts is that
next year, 2007, is going to get worse and, in public, you have the
president and you have the Pentagon [saying], ‘Oh, no, things are
going to get better,’” he tells Wallace. “Now there’s public, and
then there’s private. But what did they do with the private? They
stamp it secret. No one is supposed to know,” says Woodward.
“Why is that secret? The insurgents know what they’re doing. They
know the level of violence and how effective they are. Who doesn’t
know? The American public,” he adds.
“President Bush says over and over as Iraqi forces stand up, U.S.
forces will stand down. The number of Iraqis in uniform today I
understand is up to 300,000?” Wallace asks.
“They’ve stood up from essentially zero to 300,000. This is the
military and the police,” Woodward replies.
“But, U.S. forces are not standing down. The attacks keep coming,”
Wallace remarks.
“They’ve stood up and up and up and we haven’t stood down, and it’s
worse,” Woodward replies.
John Negorponte knows it’s worse. He’s the U.S. Director of National
Intelligence, and according to Woodward, Negroponte thinks the U.S.
policy inIraq is in trouble – that violence is now so widespread that
the U.S. doesn’t even know about much of it; and that the killings
will continue to escalate.
“He was the ambassador there in Iraq and now he sees all the
intelligence,”Woodward says. “I report he believes that we’ve always
going almost back to the beginning, miscalculated and underestimated
the nature of the insurgency.”
Why?
“There’s this feeling, ‘How can a bunch guys running around putting
improvised explosive devices in dead animals and by the side of the
road in cars, cause all this trouble,” Woodward says.
Woodward reports that a top general says Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld has so emasculated the joint chiefs that the chairman of the
chiefs has become “the parrot on Rumsfeld’s shoulder.”
And, according to Woodward, another key general, John Abizaid, who’s
in charge of the whole Gulf region, told friends that on Iraq,
Rumsfeld has lost all credibility.
“What does that mean, he doesn’t have any credibility anymore?”
Wallace asks.
“That means that he cannot go public and articulate what the strategy
is. Now, this is so important they decide,” Woodward explains. “The
Secretary of State Rice will announce what the strategy is. This is
October of last year.” She told Congress the U.S. strategy in Iraq is
“clear, hold and build.”
“Rumsfeld sees this and goes ballistic and says, ‘Now wait a minute.
That’s not our strategy. We want to get the Iraqis to do these
things.’ Well it turns out George Bush and the White House liked this
definition of the strategy so it’s in a presidential speech he’s
gonna give the next month,” Woodward tells Wallace. “Rumsfeld sees
it. He calls Andy Card, the White House chief of staff and says ‘Take
it out. Take it out. That’s not our strategy. We can’t do that.’ Card
says it’s the core of what we’re doing. That’s two and a half years
after the invasion ofIraq. They cannot agree on the definition of the
strategy. They cannot agree on the bumper sticker.”
“General John Abizaid, commander of all U.S. forces in the Middle
East, you quote him as saying privately a year ago that the U.S.
should start cutting its troops in Iraq. You report that he told some
close Army friends, quote, ‘We’ve gotta get the f out.’ And then this
past March, General Abizaid visitedCongressman John Murtha on Capitol
Hill,” Wallace says.
“John Murtha is in many ways the soul and the conscience of the
military,” Woodward replies. “And he came out and said, ‘We need to
get out of Iraq as soon as it’s practical’ and that sent a 10,000
volt jolt through the White House.”
“Here’s Mr. Military saying, ‘We need to get out,’” Woodward
continues. “And John Abizaid went to see him privately. This is
Bush’s and Rumsfeld’s commander in Iraq,” Woodward says.
“And John Abizaid held up his fingers, according to Murtha, and said,
‘We’re about a quarter of an inch apart, said, ‘We’re that far
apart,’” Woodward says.
“You report that after George W. Bush was reelected, his chief of
staff, Andy Card, tried for months to convince the president to fire
Don Rumsfeld. Why?”Wallace asks.
“To replace him. Because it wasn’t working. Card felt very strongly
that the president needed a whole new national security team,”
Woodward says.
“You write Laura Bush was worried that Rumsfeld was hurting her
husband.Andy Card told her the president seemed happy with Rumsfeld.
And the first lady replied, quote, ‘He’s happy with this but I’m
not.’ And later she said, ‘I don’t know why he’s not upset,’” Wallace
remarks.
“What’s interesting, Andy Card, as White House chief of staff every
six weeks set up a one on one meeting with Laura Bush. Set aside an
hour and a half to talk about what’s going on, what are the
president’s anxieties? Smart meeting,”Woodward explains. “And in the
course of these sessions the problem with Rumsfeld came up. And she
voiced her concern about the situation.”
But Dick Cheney wanted Rumsfeld to stay. Why?
“Well, Rumsfeld’s his guy,” Woodward says. “And Cheney confided to an
aid that if Rumsfeld goes, next they’ll be after Cheney.”
(CBS) Cheney stunned Woodward by revealing that a frequent advisor to
the Bush White House is former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger,
who served Presidents Nixon and Ford during the Vietnam War.
“He’s back,” Woodward says. “In fact, Henry Kissinger is almost like
a member of the family. If he’s in town, he can call up and if the
president’s free, he’ll see him.”
Woodward recorded his on-the-record interview with Cheney, and here’s
what the vice president said about Henry Kissinger’s clout: “Of the
outside people that I talk to in this job I probably talk to Henry
Kissinger more than just about anybody else. He just comes by and I
guess at least once a month,” Cheney tells Woodward. “I sit down with
him.”
Asked whether the president also meets with Kissinger, Cheney told
Woodward, “Yes. Absolutely.”
The vice president also acknowledged that President Bush is a big fan
of Kissinger.
“Now, what’s Kissinger’s advice? In Iraq, he declared very simply:
‘Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy.’ This is so
fascinating. Kissinger’s fighting the Vietnam War again. Because in
his view the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will. That we didn’t
stick to it,” Woodward says.
He says Kissinger is telling the president to stick to it, stay the
course. “It’s right out of the Kissinger playbook,” Woodward says.
In his book, published by CBS sister company, Simon & Schuster,
Woodward reports that the first President Bush confided to one of his
closest friends how upset he is that his son invaded Iraq.
“The former President Bush is said to be in agony, anguished,
tormented by the war in Iraq and its aftermath,” Wallace says.
“Yes,” Woodward replies.
Asked if the former president conveys that message to his son,
Woodward says, “I don’t know the answer to that. He tells it to Brent
Scowcroft, his former national security advisor.”
“You paint a picture, Bob, of the president as the cheerleader-in-
chief. Current reality be damned. He’s convinced that he’s gonna
succeed in Iraq, yes?”Wallace asks.
“Yes, that’s correct,” Woodward says.
Woodward interviewed President George W. Bush for the first two books
for hours.
“And do you know what? There are people who are gonna say, look
Woodward is savaging President Bush because he wouldn’t see him for
this book,”Wallace remarks.
Woodward says that’s not true. “He did not, and I asked. And I made
it very clear to the White House what my questions were, what my
information was. What could he say? That the secret chart is not
right?” Woodward says. “That these things that happened in these
meetings didn’t occur? They’re documented. I talked to the people who
were there. Your producer, Bob Anderson, has listened to the tapes of
my interviews with people to make sure that it’s not just kind of
right, but literally right. This is what occurred.”
And Woodward says that no matter what has occurred in Iraq, Mr. Bush
does not welcome any pessimistic assessments from his aides, because
he’s sure that his war has Iraq and America on the right path.
“Late last year he had key Republicans up to the White House to talk
about the war. And said, ‘I will not withdraw even if Laura and
Barney are the only ones supporting me.’ Barney is his dog,” Woodward
says. “My work on this leads to lots of people who spend hours, days
with the president.”
“And in most cases they are my best sources. And there is a concern
that we need to face realism. Not being the voice that says, ‘Oh no,
everything’s fine,’ when it’s not,” Woodward adds.