Bush later acknowledged in interviews with me that he did not seek recommendations from four key people: his father, former President George H.W. Bush, who had overseen the first Gulf War in 1991; Secretary of State Colin Powell; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; and CIA Director George Tenet.
When I pressed him a dozen times on what his father's advice on invading Iraq might have been, Bush dodged the questions and told me he couldn't recall. Finally, he said, "He is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength.
There is a higher Father."
There was a momentum toward war and a lack of caution that the president embraced. His convictions were driving the march to war like a locomotive gaining steam.
In a December 2003 interview, nine months after the Iraq invasion, Bush told me, "I believe we have a duty to free people." He wanted to liberate the Iraqis from oppression and said he had a "zeal" to do so. In May 2008, I asked if he still believed that.
"I do," he said. "It's very important, though, for you to understand that I have a set of beliefs that are inviolate: faith in the transformative power of freedom and the belief that people, if just given a chance, will choose free societies."
I have never doubted the sincerity of the president's convictions. But convictions alone are not enough. The decision to go to war is momentous. The decision to launch a preemptive war is doubly so and carries with it a great weight of responsibility.
In my 1991 book, The Commanders, on the invasion of Panama and the first Gulf War to oust Saddam from Kuwait, I wrote, "The decision to go to war is one that defines a nation, both to the world and, perhaps more importantly, to itself. There is no more serious business for a national government, no more accurate measure of national leadership."
A president must be able to get a clear-eyed, unbiased assessment of the war. The president must lead. 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.
This was most evident in the three years after the invasion, the period covered in my third Bush book, State of Denial, published in September 2006. Bush and his administration had not openly acknowledged the severity of escalating violence and deterioration in Iraq. "With all Bush's upbeat talk and optimism," I wrote in the book's last line, "he had not told the American public the truth about what Iraq had become."
My reporting for this book showed that to be even more the case than I could have imagined.
* * *
In some ways, President Bush has changed very little since my first interview with him on December 20, 2001. He remains a man of few doubts, still following his gut, convinced that the path he has chosen is right. But in other ways, the 61-year-old president I encountered in May 2008 was a different man entirely. It wasn't just the inevitable aging. The presidency, not surprisingly, has worn on him. Seven years of war have taken a visible toll. His hair is much grayer, and the lines in his face deeper and more pronounced. Still fit for his age, he has a noticeable paunch and sometimes slouches in his chair. During the first years of the Iraq War, the president always spoke about "winning" or "victory." By 2008, he seemed to have tempered his expectations. Twice in the interview when he mentioned "win," he immediately corrected himself and said "succeed," a subtle but definite scaling back of his once fiery rhetoric.
Since March 2003, when President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, about half a million men and women of the U.S. military have served there. More than 4,100 have died and another 30,000 have been seriously wounded. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed. As I write this in the early summer of 2008, about 140,000 U.S. troops remain there.
In our final interview, the president talked irritably of how he believed there was an "elite" class in America that thought he could do nothing right. He was more guarded than ever, often answering that he could not remember details and emphasizing many times how much he had turned over to Steve Hadley. There was an air of resignation about him, as if he realized how little he could change in the eight months he had left as president.
He alternately insisted that he was "consumed" by the war, "reviewing every day," before adding, "But make sure you know, it's not as though I'm sitting behind the desk and totally overwhelmed by Iraq, because the president's got to do a lot of other things."
By his own ambitious goals of 2001, Bush had fallen short. He had not united the country but had added to its divisions, and he himself had become the nation's most divisive figure. Even the president acknowledged that he had failed "to change the tone in Washington." He had not rooted out terror wherever it existed. He had not achieved world peace. He had not attained victory in his two wars.
* * *
On August 7, 2007, my assistant Brady Dennis and I went to see former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, one of the architects of the Vietnam War. In his 1995 book, In Retrospect, McNamara had owned up to his mistakes and concluded that the United States could have withdrawn from Vietnam much earlier without serious consequence to national security. We sat with McNamara in the white-carpeted living room of his Watergate apartment. At 91, his mind was still lively, and his blue eyes still flickered with enthusiasm. Throughout the three-hour interview, he kept returning to one theme: The major disagreements about the Vietnam War too often had not been put on the table before President Johnson, especially with all his key advisers present. Too few people had expressed their reservations, and the president hadn't exactly sought them out.
"I am absolutely positive that most leaders wish to avoid confrontation among their senior people, particularly in front of them," McNamara said. "And that's a serious weakness. I think every leader should force his senior people to confront major issues in front of him." Presidents want to maintain harmony. "They steer away from conflict."
McNamara believed that was a great disservice.
McNamara said he thought he was being loyal to Lyndon Johnson at the time by going along with the president's policy on the war. "As I look back on it," he said, "I should have been more forceful in forcing Johnson to address these issues." When he announced his resignation in 1967, he said, "I felt at the end very reluctant to expose the differences that existed. I was worried they might get out. And I was worried that they would make the job of the president more difficult, because [internal memos] basically said we're losing."
* * *
One final question: Who pays the price of war? I don't mean the billions of dollars spent each year on it. I mean the human cost. That falls to the 140,000 service members and to their loved ones. They are the ones losing limbs, losing lives, and losing years to deployments halfway around the world. A friend of mine labeled this the "ripple of human misery" that disperses slowly, quietly throughout every corner of the country, often unnoticed by the majority of Americans. Those who serve and their families are the surrogates of all Americans. They bear the risk and the strain of a year or more in a violent foreign land. So many have spent their youth and spilled their blood in a fight far from home. What do we owe them? Everything. And what have we given them? Much less than they deserve.
President Bush has rarely leveled with the public to explain what he was doing and what should be expected. He did not seek sacrifice from most of the country when he had the chance. He did not even mobilize his own party.
Republicans often voiced as much suspicion and distrust as Democrats.
The president rarely was the voice of realism on the Iraq War.
* * *
There is an encyclopedia of lessons for the next president to learn from Bush's management of the war. The first might be to trust the public with the truth, in all its pain and uncertainty. In the summer and early fall of 2006, when it was obvious the United States was failing in Iraq, the American people most likely would have rejoiced if the president had leveled with them, said he knew th
e strategy was not working and that he had begun an intensive review. The president is correct when he says he should not make decisions based on polls or focus groups. But in a democracy, the public is not something just to "game" or "spin." The administration worried too much about a
"hothouse" election year story of internal debate and strife and not enough about the war itself. In the decision not to level, the president gave up what could have been his greatest assetópublic support.
"When did he decide to become commander in chief?" one of the people involved for years in Iraq War decision making asked me recently. "That is the question."
The answer is that there were moments, but far too few. After ordering the invasion, the president spent three years in denial and then delegated a strategy review to his national security adviser. Bush was intolerant of confrontations and in-depth debate. There was no deadline, no hurry. The president was engaged in the war rhetorically but maintained an odd detachment from its management. He never got a full handle on it, and over these years of war, too often he failed to lead.
* * *
As the Bush presidency becomes history, the wars he began will become part of another president's story. "Most important question, really. There's going to be a new president-elect who will come in here," I asked during our last interview on May 21, 2008. "Not as a Democrat or a Republican, but as the president, what are you going to say to the new leader about what you are handing off in Iraq?"
He thought about it for a moment. "What I'll say is, 'Don't let it fail.'"
Every person has shortcomings. But a president's shortcomings are visited upon an entire nation and, in a major war, they are visited upon the world.
The next president will face a complex set of organizational, military, political and leadership challenges because of the Iraq War. It won't be solved with slogans or party doctrine, or through wishful thinking. When the next president steps into the Oval Office on January 20, 2009, and surveys what he has inherited, I suspect he will be sobered by all that has been left behind.
GLOSSARY
AIF: Anti-Iraqi forces.
Al Qaeda: International terrorist organization headed by Osama bin Laden.
AQI or AQIZ: Al Qaeda in Iraq. Homegrown terrorist organization affiliated with al Qaeda that sprang up after the U.S. invasion in March 2003.
Baath Party: Saddam Hussein's ruling political party in Iraq from 1968 to 2003.
Battalion: U.S. Army or Marine unit normally made up of about 600 to 800 personnel.
Brigade: U.S. Army or Marine unit normally made up of 3,000 or more personnel.
CentCom: Central Command. U.S. military command responsible for the Middle East and South Asia; headquartered in Tampa, Florida.
CPA: Coalition Provisional Authority. Agency responsible for Iraqi occupation from May 2003 to June 2004; led by L. Paul Bremer.
Dawa Party: "The Call"; small Shia party in Iraq that includes Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
DDR: Disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of militias.
DIA: Defense Intelligence Agency. Coordinating intelligence agency in the Defense Department that reports to the secretary of defense but is subject to the coordinating authority of the director of national intelligence.
de-Baathification: Policy of removing Baath Party members from positions of responsibility in government, military and schools.
Defense Policy Board: Group of former officials, retired military officers and other experts who advise the secretary of defense on policy.
DNI: Director of national intelligence. Office established in 2005 that oversees and directs the activities of the various intelligence agencies.
DOD: Department of Defense.
EFP: Explosively formed projectile. A shaped charge capable of penetrating armor that is substantially more lethal than conventional IEDs.
GCC: Gulf Cooperation Council. Regional group made up of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait.
Green Zone: Also known as the International Zone. Heavily fortified area of central Baghdad where the Iraqi government and U.S. diplomatic presence are headquartered.
HUMINT: Human intelligence.
IED: Improvised explosive device. A makeshift bomb made of old munitions and other explosives, used by various al Qaeda and insurgent groups on or alongside roads.
ISF: Iraqi security forces.
Iraq Study Group: Bipartisan group formed March 2006, charged with conducting an independent assessment of the situation in Iraq.
J2: Intelligence directorate of the Joint Staff.
J3: Operations directorate of the Joint Staff.
J5: Strategic plans and policy directorate of the Joint Staff.
JAM or Mahdi Army: The Jaish al Mahdi. Militia headed by radical anti-American Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
JCS: Joint Chiefs of Staff.
JSAT: Joint Strategic Assessment Team. Group that advised General Petraeus in Iraq in early 2007.
JSOC: Joint Special Operations Command.
MCNS: Ministerial Committee on National Security. The high-level Iraqi policy council.
MNSTC-I and/or Minsticky: Multi-National Security Transition CommandóIraq. Training arm of the U.S. Army responsible for forming the new Iraqi army and police force.
NIE: National Intelligence Estimate.
NSA: National Security Agency. Responsible for intercepting foreign communications and protecting the communication and cryptographic systems and codes of the United States.
NSC: National Security Council. The president and his senior foreign policy makers, including the vice president, the secretaries of state and defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of national intelligence.
The NSC staff is headed by the national security adviser.
OIF: Operation Iraqi Freedom. Name of the 2003 invasion and ongoing U.S. military operations in Iraq.
Operation Together Forward: Unsuccessful two-phase security plan to reduce violence in Baghdad that ran from June 2006 to October 2006.
PRT: Provincial Reconstruction Team. State Department civilian teams that coordinate rebuilding and government issues at the provincial level in Iraq.
RFF: Request for Forces. Official request by a battlefield commander for additional troops.
SCIRI or SIIC: Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. The leading Shia party in Iraq, it was renamed the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council on May 12, 2007.
SecDef: Secretary of Defense.
SVTS or VTC: Secure video teleconference. Video and audio hook-up used between Washington and Baghdad.
Tank: Pentagon conference room designated for use by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
NOTES
A NOTE ON SOURCES
Almost all of the Bush administration's internal deliberations on the Iraq War have been classified. Early in my reporting, I was able to obtain documents that provided glimpses of how the decision making evolved in 2006 and 2007. The White House agreed to declassify a dozen documents after my initial inquiries, and I was able to independently acquire dozens more.
Most of the information in this book was obtained from interviews with more than 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. Officials with firsthand knowledge of meetings, documents and events, employed at various levels of the White House staff, the departments of Defense and State, and the intelligence community also served as primary sources.
Most interviews were conducted on "background," meaning that the information provided could be used but the sources would not be identified by name in the book. Many sources were interviewed multiple times by me or my research assistant, Brady Dennis. We interviewed some sources a half-dozen times or more. Nearly everyone allowed us to record the interviews so the story could be told more fully and accurately, with the exact language they used.
I interv
iewed President Bush on the record in the Oval Office for nearly three hours on May 20ñ21, 2008. In all, I have interviewed him six times about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, for a total of nearly 11 hours. Past interviews from which I drew material for this book are noted.
In addition, critical information came from an array of documentsómemos, letters, official notes, personal notes, briefing summaries, PowerPoint slides, e-mails, journals, calendars, agendas and chronologies. Where documents are quoted, we have had access to the originals or to copies.
The use of dialogue in meetings or conversations comes from at least one participant, usually more, as well as from written memos or contemporaneous notes. When thoughts, conclusions or feelings are attributed to a participant, that point of view has been obtained from that person directly, from the written record, or from a colleague whom the person told. Quotation marks are used when I judged the written record or firsthand recollections precise enough to justify their use. Quotation marks were not used when the sources were unsure about the exact wording, or when the documentation was unclear.
I have attempted to preserve the language of the main characters and sources as much as possible, using their words even when they are not directly quoted, reflecting the flavor of their speech and attitudes as best I could.
No reporter can with 100 percent accuracy re-create events that occurred months or even years earlier. The human memory is fallible, and the past often looks different in retrospect. By checking with numerous sources and comparing their accounts to the written record, I have tried to provide as accurate an account as possible.
I realize that because this book provides the first in-depth examination of the deliberations that led to the troop surge in Iraq, it is much closer to the first draft of history than the last. I have tried, as always, to find the best obtainable version of the truth.
PROLOGUE
The War Within Page 45
