Bob Woodward

by State of Denial (lit)

  Now I tell you another answer to that. You don't want to care about North Korea anymore? Bandar asked. The Saudis wanted America to focus on the Middle East and not get drawn into a conflict in East Asia.

  I didn't say that, Bush replied.

  But if you don't, you withdraw those troops back. Then it becomes a local conflict. Then you have the whole time to decide, 'Should I get involved? Not involved?' Etc.

  At that moment, Colin Powell approached.

  Colin, Bush said, come here. Bandar and I were shooting the bull, just two fighter pilots shooting the bull. He didn't mention the topic.

  Mr. Governor, Bandar said, General Powell is almost a fighter pilot. He can shoot the bull almost as good as us.

  Bandar followed W.'s 2000 campaign like a full-time political reporter and news junkie. He appreciated the focus and the method. The candidate's father promised to come to Bandar's estate outside London for pheasant shooting after the election. Bush senior told Bandar, By the time I come to shoot with you, either we will be celebrating my boy is in the White House, or we'll be commiserating together because my boy lost.

  A man with his own addictions and obsessions, Bandar spent immense amounts of time studying the psychology of individual human beings and he developed a theory about what drove George W. Bush's ambition. First, W. had rejected the key figure in his father's rise in politics to the presidency, James A. Baker III, his father's chief political operative and secretary of state. In W.'s opinion, Baker had not done enough in the 1992 reelection campaign, had left his father alone. Barbara Bush thought Baker was out for himself.

  But when W. was faced with the Florida recount battle in 2000, he swallowed his pride and named Baker to head the recount effort. Who played the big boys' bloody and cutthroat game better than Baker?

  I think Bush came into office with a mission, Bandar said. Many people are confusing it with his faith—religious faith. I think he had a mission that is agnostic. That he was convinced that the mission had to be achieved and that he is the only one who is going to achieve it. And it started with: Injustice has been done to a good man, George Herbert Walker Bush, a man who was a hero, who served his country, who did everything right. His father had been a decorated World War II pilot, congressman, United Nations ambassador, Republican National Committee chairman, envoy to China, CIA director, vice president. All the things that W did not do. Then as president, his father went to war in 1991 to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. And he wins, Bandar continued, and a charlatan—in his mind—draft dodger, etc., beats him. There is no justice.

  Clinton's victory in 1992 was the catalyst. So from 1992, this young man who was a wild young man in his youth, matured, but with a focuson one mission. There's injustice. There's something not right. I am going to correct it.

  After the 2000 election, Bandar visited President Bush in the White House regularly, and kept in touch with Bush senior all the time. On occasion, he saw the father and son together. There was a bonding, an apparent emotional connection, and yet there was a standoffishness, a distance that was not explainable. Many times Bush senior commented to him about policies being pursued by his son.

  Why don't you call him about it? Bandar asked.

  I had my turn, Bush senior replied. It is his turn now. I just have to stay off the stage. For eight years I did not make one comment about Clinton. I will not make any comment vis-à-vis this president, not only out of principle but to let him be himself.

  In a small fifth-floor corner office of his international consulting firm three blocks north of the White House, Brent Scowcroft, one of the few men as close to former President Bush as Bandar, viewed the fledgling presidency of Bush's son with mixed emotions. A small-framed Mormon with a doctorate in international relations and 29 years of military service, a three-star general in the Air Force, Scowcroft had served as national security adviser to both Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush.

  He and the elder President Bush were contemporaries, born just nine months apart. And they were policy soul mates, so close that instead of writing a presidential memoir, Bush had teamed up with Scowcroft to co-author a 566-page book in 1998 called A World Transformed. It was a sort of semi memoir, one of the most unusual books to emerge from a 20th-century presidency. Bush and Scowcroft wrote alternating, dueling sections with occasional snippets of narrative sandwiched between. It demonstrated both men's immersion in the events of the Bush presidency from 1989 to 1992, including revealing though carefully manicured inside accounts of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Gulf War.

  Scowcroft communicated with Bush senior as much as Bandar did. He knew the father did not want to leave the impression that he was looking over his son's shoulder. If it were even suggested that Bush senior had any hidden-hand presence in his son's administration, in Scowcroft's view it would demean the son and reduce the respect and support for his presidency, even undermine it.

  But Scowcroft also knew that it was very personal—a textbook case encompassing more than half a century of subtle and not-so-subtle father-son tensions, love, joy, rivalries and disappointments. After all, Scowcroft knew that here was the father who had done everything—and done everything quite well in his view.

  As best Scowcroft could calculate, George W. Bush didn't know who he was until he was about 45. And now he was president? It was astonishing. Now, Scowcroft knew, the father did not want to injure the son's self-confidence. He and Barbara had given the world not only a son but a president of the United States. The father desperately, passionately, wanted him to succeed. The best way to help was to stay out of his way.

  As soon as I take my hand off the Bible, I want a plan of action, George W. Bush told Karl Rove, his chief political strategist, immediately after the Supreme Court declared him the winner on December 12, 2000. I saw what happened to my old man, whom I love more than life itself, and he got into office and had no plan. He said he'd watched Clinton quickly plunge into controversies of the moment over gays in the military and cabinet appointments. Bush said he wanted to focus on big-agenda items.

  Time is our ally at the beginning of the administration, Bush told Rove. It will at some point turn against me. He wanted momentum, and he wanted the focus and political debate in the Congress and the country to be on his agenda. So I want a plan.

  Bush had known Rove for 28 years. As one of their most senior Texas political associates explained, Karl has got a somewhat split personality in that he can be your loyal, dear friend—and cut your throat the next day without thinking about it if he perceives that you're a threat to him. Rove could get paranoid, the Texas associate said, and he never really got the paranoia out of his system. But Bush knew that paranoia—especially Rove's version of it—was useful in politics.

  When Bush had decided to run for president, he had asked Rove to divest himself of Karl Rove Company, his direct mail and political consulting firm. If you're going to be my guy, you've got to sell your business and be full-time for me. If you're going to be my guy, you're going to be my guy. Rove had strong views and wanted to control many things, and Bush had to cut him off at the knees, at times nicely, at other times quite forcefully.

  Now, Bush wanted to make sure my guy was right there by his side in the White House. Rove was given no line responsibility but instead a broad and open-ended license to look after two matters: first, Bush's immediate political well-being that day, that week, that month; and second, Bush's long-term political health, positioning him for reelection in 2004.

  Rove, 50, set himself up in a second-floor West Wing White House office that had last been used by Hillary Clinton. He believed Bush's re-election prospects would hinge on a successful first term, and in the first months of the Bush presidency that meant one issue: tax cuts, the centerpiece of Bush's domestic agenda. In a debate during the Republican primaries, Bush had said, This is not only 'no new taxes,' quoting the campaign pledge his father had made and later broken. This is 'Tax cuts, so help me God.'

  So Rove t
hrew himself into tax cuts, which he thought would define the Bush presidency. In contrast, and despite all the tutoring, Bush had no plan for foreign affairs. He held no so-help-me-God convictions.

  3

  in his first Pentagon tour, Donald Rumsfeld had acquired a disdain for large parts of the system he was to oversee once again. He had found the Pentagon and the vast U.S. military complex unmanageable. One night at a dinner at my house a dozen years after he had left the Pentagon the first time, he said that being secretary was like having an electric appliance in one hand and the plug in the other and you are running around trying to find a place to put it in. It was an image that stuck with me—Rumsfeld charging around the Pentagon E-ring, the Man with the Appliance, seeking an elusive electrical socket, trying to make things work and feeling unplugged by the generals and admirals.

  This time he was going to get control. He would not be distracted by outside events. The military services—Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force—were special pleaders, narrow-minded. Though a former congressman, he thought Congress also was narrow, unhelpful, wedded to habit and protocol. Foreign visitors and officials chewed up too much time, and the routine of ceremonies and meetings was a pain in the ass. No, he had big things to do. That meant focus. He was going to change the entire U.S. military, transform it into a leaner, more efficient, more agile, more lethal fighting machine. It was not just important to the military, he felt; it was important to the credibility of the United States.

  Shortly after Rumsfeld settled into his office, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Henry H. Hugh Shelton, who had been appointed the nation's senior military officer by President Clinton, asked for a private meeting.

  When President Bush took the oath of office, my loyalties immediately shifted to him as commander in chief, Shelton said. I want to be considered a member of your team.

  Shelton, 59, was a paratrooper with 37 years in the military, including two tours in Vietnam. Tall, amiable, never considered one of the Army's intellectuals, Shelton had a direct manner. He knew the value of political loyalty, and how contentious the 2000 presidential election had been. He was making a peace offering to the new regime.

  Under recent defense secretaries for the last 15 years, the chairman acted as the link and communications channel between the secretary and the combatant commanders. The model was the 1991 Gulf War, when JCS Chairman Colin Powell had been the main conduit of information and orders between then Secretary of Defense Cheney and General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander of Operation Desert Storm.

  The JCS chairman had potential power and influence, as a go-between and adviser, but he was not in the chain of command.

  What precisely are your duties? Rumsfeld asked Shelton. Since his first time as defense secretary in the Ford administration, the Goldwater-Nichols reform legislation of 1986 had enhanced the chairman's role, at least on paper.

  I'm the principal military adviser to the president, you and the National Security Council, General Shelton answered, citing his authority from the 15-year-old Goldwater-Nichols law in Title X of the U.S. Code.

  Oh, no, Rumsfeld said, not the NSC.

  Yes, sir, Shelton quietly repeated. The law was clear.

  Not the NSC staff, Rumsfeld said. He had found NSC staffers in the Ford administration troublesome, puffing themselves up as if they spoke for the president.

  Not the staff, Shelton agreed. But as the principal military adviser to the NSC, he dealt with the NSC principals—the president, vice president, secretary of state, secretary of defense, the president's national security adviser and the CIA director. Though the law said that the chairman's role was limited to advice, communications and oversight, he had a seat in the White House Situation Room when policy and war were discussed.

  Rumsfeld was uncomfortable with a system that interfered with a strict chain of command from the president as commander in chief to him as secretary of defense and then to the military combatant commanders out around the world from the Pacific to the Middle East.

  A week later, Rumsfeld told Shelton he had an idea to cut staff. Colin Powell had built the Joint Staff into a powerhouse of hundreds of ambitious middle-level and senior officers. Powell called it an action staff, organized and dedicated to getting things done. With two- and three-star generals and admirals heading the directorates, the Joint Staff was still often considered the most potent staff in Washington.

  It's too big, Rumsfeld said. He wanted Shelton to pare it down, get rid of the people who handled public relations, legislative liaison and legal matters for the chairman. Shelton could use Rumsfeld's civilian staff for those matters.

  Sir, I'm supposed to give independent military advice, Shelton replied. He pointed out that he had probably fewer than 30 people in those three sections while Rumsfeld had over 200. Maybe the civilian side would be the best place to cut? he suggested.

  Rumsfeld dropped the matter for the moment.

  Shelton was worried about trust between himself and the new secretary. Before Rumsfeld had been confirmed, he had received a chilling warning. A retired Navy captain who had worked for Air Force General George S. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs during Rumsfeld's first tour as secretary of defense, had sent him a personal letter. It was damning. The captain claimed that Rumsfeld could not be trusted, that he despised the uniformed military.

  You are not going to enjoy this relationship, he wrote. He will be in control of everything. Shelton shared the letter with several senior generals and admirals.

  God, I hope this isn't true, Shelton said, noting that he had only nine months left to serve as chairman. I don't want to spend my last year in this kind of environment.

  Other retired senior military officers had chilling stories of being dressed down by Rumsfeld. Admiral James L. Holloway, the chief of naval operations from 1974 to 1978, said Rumsfeld had chewed him out in front of 40 other senior military officers and civilians. Rumsfeld was concerned about some congressional testimony and Holloway had attempted to explain.

  Shut up, Rumsfeld said, according to Holloway, I don't want any excuses. You are through and you'll not have time to clean out your desk if this is not taken care of.

  Shelton was concerned as Rumsfeld built a kitchen cabinet of special assistants and consultants within the Office of the Secretary of Defense. It was growing into a fortress, old friends and retired military officers. First was Stephen Cambone, a 6-foot-3 defense intellectual who had worked closely on Rumsfeld's space and missile defense commissions in the 1990s. Cambone was named Rumsfeld's top civilian assistant. Second was Martin Hoffman, who had been Rumsfeld's roommate and fellow member of the Princeton Class of 1954, and who had been secretary of the army during Rumsfeld's first Pentagon tour. The two men had been close friends for nearly 50 years. Third was M. Staser Holcomb, a retired Navy vice admiral who had been Rumsfeld's military assistant in the 1970s.

  The fourth and perhaps most important member of the kitchen cabinet was Steve Herbits, 59, a lawyer and longtime Rumsfeld friend going back to 1967. Herbits had been one of Rumsfeld's civilian special assistants during the first Pentagon tour, and ran the Defense transition and personnel search for Caspar Weinberger in 1981 and for Cheney in 1989 when each became secretary of defense. Herbits became a top executive at the Seagram Company, the giant liquor business. Probably no one had more longevity or credibility with Rumsfeld on basic military management and issues. Rumsfeld made Herbits a consultant with a license to analyze current problems, and he functioned as a management fix-it man somewhat as Karl Rove did for President Bush.

  Herbits, who was also a gay rights activist and occasional contributor to Democratic candidates—and thus highly unusual among Republican defense experts—was known for his incisive, provocative, slashing dissections of personnel and institutions. Rumsfeld appreciated his style and skill at cutting through the normal fog of Pentagon paperwork and lowest-common-denominator analysis.

  Rumsfeld and Cambone were looking for a senior
military assistant, a key post on Rumsfeld's team. Previously, the position had been held by a three-star general or admiral. Nope, Rumsfeld said. He wanted to demonstrate what downsizing was about. The Pentagon bureaucracy was bloated, and the military kept putting officers of higher and higher rank in key positions, a kind of rank inflation. Rumsfeld wanted to go down two full ranks to not even a two-star but a one-star officer—a junior flag officer.

  They thought of a Navy rear admiral named J. J. Quinn, who had headed the Naval Space Command and had given candid testimony the previous year to Rumsfeld's space commission. Quinn, a 1974 Naval Academy graduate, had testified in secret that the small Navy space program should ideally be increased to assist the war-fighting commands. If it wasn't expanded, maybe the Navy should get out of the space business altogether. It was almost unheard of to have a military commander suggest that his command be eliminated.

  Rumsfeld and Hoffman called Quinn in for an interview. Quinn, 48, 6-foot-2, had been the captain of the baseball team at the Naval Academy. Rumsfeld, a former Navy pilot, delved into Quinn's career.

  Quinn was a naval aviator though not a pilot. He had flown in the back seat of F-14 fighter jets as the radar interceptor officer and later as a Top Gun instructor. He had served in the White House as a military aide to President Reagan for 19 months, and to President Bush senior for five months, carrying the so-called football, or codes for nuclear war.

  Rumsfeld asked Quinn about his service as commanding officer of an F-14 squadron on the USS Ranger during the 1991 Gulf War. Quinn described flying 51 strike escort and photo reconnaissance missions in 43 days. After the war, he went to the grueling 20-month nuclear power school founded by the late Admiral Hyman Rickover in preparation for command of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

  Rumsfeld asked about his time as commanding officer of the USS Abraham Lincoln.