The War Within - A Review

Woodward, Bob. The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: Simon & Schuster, 2008. xvi + 487 pages. Glossary. Notes. Acknowledgments. Index. $32.00.

This is the fourth of Bob Woodward’s chronicles of the Bush administration’s struggles with Islamic terrorism, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, its domestic critics, and itself. As a reminder, the first three were Bush at War, Plan of Attack, and State of Denial. One of the most interesting background features of The War Within is that President Bush resumes his interviews with Woodward, after cutting him off during the writing of State of Denial. I suppose the president decided that he had a better chance of getting his point across if he talked to Woodward, than if he forced Woodward to rely on opposition sources.

The story of The War Within is the story of the origins of the surge. During 2006, while President Bush was campaigning for Republican candidates, there were a number of studies underway on the war in Iraq, and all of them were concluding that the war was not going well. This point was put most bluntly by the so-called Council of Colonels, an ad-hoc review panel pulled together by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when they concluded that if the United States was not winning the war, it was losing it. In effect, all of the various reviews – the Iraq Study Group, the Council of Colonels, State Department studies, and National Security Council studies, all concluded that the war that was being conducted by George Casey in Iraq and John Abizaid at Central Command was a losing effort.

By 2006, after three years of what might charitably be called drift in Iraq, George Bush himself was not satisfied with the way the war was going. He was certainly not satisfied with the way it was perceived by Congress, including the Republicans in Congress, and the public. He was not, however, going to tell anyone that the war was not a success. The first theme of The War Within, a theme that pervades the first two-thirds of the book, is Bush’s determination to maintain a public stance that the war was going well, that the United States was winning, that Iraq was better off and the United States was more secure, while he was countenancing a number of assessments and reviews, all predicated on the unsatisfactory state of the war and the current strategy.

Years ago, I read an article about business communications, in which the author discussed research showing a disconnect between what one level of management perceived as their subordinates’ greatest problems, and what the subordinates themselves identified as their worst problems. The conclusion was that the subordinates were reluctant, even strongly averse, to reveal to their superiors that they were having a problem, unless they could identify a plausible solution. Therefore, the bosses only knew about the problems the subordinates thought they knew how to solve. The really intractable problems were kept close to the subordinates’ vests.

I was reminded of this, because Woodward’s portrayal of Bush struck me as a case in which the president was not going to reveal to his bosses – the American people – that he perceived the war in Iraq as a major problem, until he was able to present them with a solution. Thus, for seven months, Mr. Bush “put on a happy face” about the war in Iraq, while those around him were trying to formulate an alternative strategy that could turn the war into a success. Was Mr. Bush lying to the American people? Was he just trying to make the best of a bad deal? Was he trying to maintain support for the strategy we had until he could bring forward the new one? The effect is very much one of a man who was not willing to let the public know that he had any doubts or concerns about the war, when, in fact, he had pretty much written off the current strategy and those responsible for carrying it out.

The second theme is President Bush’s passivity. President Bush didn’t ask Steve Hadley, his National Security Advisor, to undertake a review of the war in Iraq. He didn’t ask the Joint Chiefs to start the Council of Colonel’s study. He didn’t ask Condoleeza Rice to have some of her Iraq experts conduct a study. The movers here are Jack Keane, former Army vice chief of staff, Chuck Robb on the Iraq Study Group, and Steve Hadley. Hadley started a review on his own initiative, obtained the president’s approval to proceed when he needed to, and pushed the process to come up with an alternative strategy. Keane identified the problem, and identified David Petraeus as the best man to deal with it. Chuck Robb may have been the first to suggest a temporary increase in force as a means of turning the corner in Iraq.

The president may have been “the decider,” but he wasn’t the initiator, he wasn’t the leader, he wasn’t the engine of change. What is most depressing about this book is the sense of wasted time. From 2003 until 2006 George W. Bush was becoming more and more unhappy with the war in Iraq. He wasn’t willing to say so publicly, and he didn’t take any action within his administration to change that. In 2006, until the Congressional elections were over, he was unwilling to expose his thinking to public view. He was unwilling to fire Don Rumsfeld, because it might show weakness. He was unwilling to replace George Casey, because it might reveal a lack of resolve. In the meantime, men, women and children were dying in Iraq, waiting for the president of the United States to make up his mind.

This is a very good book. I would say it is essential reading for anyone interested in the Bush presidency and the war in Iraq. But it is a portrait of a man who was either so sure of himself that he was incapable of motivating himself to make necessary changes, or so insecure that his fear of appearing indecisive overwhelmed his ability to make the right decisions.