Bob Woodward

by State of Denial (lit)

  Once we have this, then we can have an Iraqi government. We can begin to be a democratic state. We can be a beacon of light in the Middle East.

  Darth Vader began to raise his voice. So we must follow these principles and we must put a democracy together and we have to write a constitution built on the principles of Jesus Christ.

  Bush and the others loved it.

  Garner continued quoting the cleric: We'll have this government. Once we have this government you bring us in as the 51st state.

  Garner then said he replied, Your Excellency, that is a terrific idea. It's going to take me a little longer to work on this one than the other things, but I will come back to you and talk to you about that.

  After the session, Garner said he and the Time reporter got in the car to drive away.

  Wow, the reporter said. What are you going to do about that?

  Hey, that's not my problem. The question is what are you going to do about that? Because no one is going to believe it when you put this in Time magazine.

  For Christ's sake, I'll never put this in Time. Nobody would believe it.

  True story, Garner said. He was on a roll.

  Every third day or so, Garner told Bush, he would try to go to the market, because that's where Iraqi people would recognize him and come up and talk to him. For the first 20 or 25 minutes, people would raise hell and bitch at him, Garner said, but then they'd start to run out of steam, and Garner would have a minute or so to make an elevator speech, to rattle off all of their accomplishments. You've got this many megawatts of electricity coming in now. We project this many more by next week. We're going to open schools at this time. We think we're going to be able to have provincial elections around this time. We'll start writing the constitution. Got this much water that we're bringing in. I know the fuel crisis is bad so we're bringing this many tankers of fuel every day. We are going to start buying the harvest next week.

  If they had specific problems, Garner said, he would promise that the next day at 10 a.m. he would have some general come by there to work on their problems. And as he'd get ready to wind up, Garner said, he'd thank the crowd for their time.

  I'd get ready to leave, Garner said, and this is true—as I leave they're all thumbs-up and they'd say, 'God bless Mr. George Bush and Mr. Tony Blair. Thank you for taking away Saddam Hussein.' That was in 70 meetings. That always was the final response.

  Oh, that's good, Bush said.

  Garner told him about how the Baathists tried to take over the first post-Saddam elections at Baghdad University. That had led to some negative press. The Americans had felt forced to let elections at the school proceed so that there would be somebody in place and the school year could finish on time. But the Baathists on campus, unpopular as they were, were more organized than anyone else, and they won. The university had been plunged into chaos.

  That was bad, Bush said, indicating he knew about it.

  Mr. President, the one thing I'll tell you, I've had three weeks to work with Ambassador Bremer and he's one of the hardest-working men I've ever seen. He's a very bright guy. He's articulate and he'll get the job done. You made a good choice.

  I didn't choose him, Bush said. Rumsfeld chose him just like he chose you.

  Garner looked over at Rumsfeld. The secretary of defense had told him explicitly in late April that Bush had selected Bremer, and had added later that even the timing of Bremer's arrival was not his call. But now Rumsfeld didn't say a word.

  As Garner go up to leave, Rice stopped him and extended her hand. Jay, you've got to stay in touch with us, she said.

  I'd like to, Garner said, thinking to himself, How the hell am I going to do that? After all, he only talked with Rumsfeld.

  On the way out, Bush slapped Garner on the back. Hey, Jay, you want to do Iran?

  Sir, the boys and I talked about that and we want to hold out for Cuba. We think the rum and the cigars are a little better... The women are prettier.

  Bush laughed. You got it. You got Cuba.

  Of course, with all the stories, jocularity, buddy-buddy talk, bluster and confidence in the Oval Office, Garner had left out the headline. He had not mentioned the problems he saw, or even hinted at them. He did not tell Bush about the three tragic mistakes he believed that Bremer, supported by Rumsfeld, had made—de-Baathification, disbanding the army and dumping the Iraqi governing group. Instead, he had said Bremer was great and had painted a portrait of an Iraq where a Shiite cleric envisioned an Iraq governed on the principles of Jesus Christ and joining the union as the 51st state. On top of that, he told Bush that everyone on the Iraqi street loved him. Once again the aura of the presidency had shut out the most important news—the bad news.

  Later, I asked Rumsfeld about the obligation to make sure the person at the top knows the bad news. Oh, I think the president knew that there were big disagreements over de-Baathification. And big disagreements over the military. There's no question that the president was aware of those issues.

  But I could find no evidence that was the case.

  On October 16, 2005, during a four-hour interview at Garner's home on a lake outside Orlando, Florida, I asked him about his decision not to mention the three tragic mistakes.

  Didn't you owe the president that?

  I didn't work for the president, Garner answered. I worked for Rumsfeld. I'm a military guy.

  I recalled for him my time as a junior officer in the Navy. I reported to the operations officer on the ship I was on. And if I thought we were making even half a tragic mistake, I'd tell my boss, but I'd make sure the captain knew.

  No, Garner said.

  I said that was perhaps why I didn't do so well in the Navy.

  No, Garner repeated, my view was I did my job. I told my boss in what I thought were pretty stern terms on the mistakes we'd made.

  Now suppose you said, 'Mr. President, I just told the secretary the following and I want you to hear it from me, because when he reports it to you I want it to be—'

  Garner interrupted. I'd have no idea how he'd have reacted, but I think he would have said, 'Well, you know, Rummy's in charge of that' or something like that.

  Three tragic mistakes, I said.

  Yeah, Garner said softly, exhaling.

  Because the three tragic mistakes we're living with now two-plus years later. You realize that?

  Absolutely, Garner replied.

  You watch the news.

  Yeah, he said.

  You don't feel you should have kind of, particularly at the upper levels there ...

  I think Rumsfeld's the upper level. No, if I had that to do over again I'd probably do that the same way. He said that he did not know of anything that Rumsfeld had done that had been overturned by the president. I'm not the only one who thought that, he added.

  If you'd said it to the president, and you could save one life— I stopped, leaving the second half of my question unasked. Because you're a pretty smart guy. You've been around—

  Yeah. You know you put it— Garner started, but he didn't finish his sentence. But you've got to remember, I didn't look at in that context. I looked at it like, I, Jay Garner, do not think this was the right thing to do. I, Jay Garner, said this over there to the guy in charge and I've said it to the guy that I work for. I've done that. I didn't even really think of bringing that up to President Bush.

  Two months later, on December 13, 2005, at a long breakfast at my home in Washington, D.C., I again raised the question of what he did not tell the president.

  That was more of a happy-glad than it was a business meeting, Garner said.

  I asked, Do you wish now that you said, 'Mr. President, as I just told the secretary of defense, in my view, I've been there and I need to make sure you understand what I think I understand. We've made three tragic mistakes.' Boom, boom, boom.

  You know, I don't know if I had that moment to live over again I don't know if I'd do that or not. But if I had done that—and quite frankly, I mean, I wouldn't have had a
problem doing that—but in my thinking, the door's closed. I mean, there's nothing I can do to open this door again. And I think if I had said that to the president in front of Cheney and Condoleezza Rice and Rumsfeld in there, the president would have looked at them and they would have rolled their eyes back and he would have thought, Boy, I wonder why we didn't get rid of this guy sooner?

  I laughed and started to ask another question.

  They didn't see it coming, Garner added. As the troops said, they drank the Kool-Aid.

  It was only one example of a visitor to the Oval Office not telling the president the whole story or the truth. Likewise, in these moments where Bush had someone from the field there in the chair beside him, he did not press, did not try to open the door himself and ask what the visitor had seen and thought. The whole atmosphere too often resembled a royal court, with Cheney and Rice in attendance, some upbeat stories, exaggerated good news, and a good time had by all.

  22

  david Kay left Washington for Qatar on June 18, the same day Garner met with Bush. He quickly realized that his Iraq Survey Group was a pretty typical military organization. There were 1,400 people assigned, but that included a lot of support staff, even a military chaplain and others in charge of morale and recreation. The core people included between 25 and 40 CIA operations officers, and some analysts and other people from the DIA and other intelligence agencies. His missile team had between 12 and 15 people, and there were about a half-dozen experts on biological weapons. There were a few hundred translators with varying levels of skill.

  Kay immediately stopped the daily trips to suspect sites. We're going to be led as an intelligence operation, he told Dayton and the others, so it means you've got to know something about what you're doing. So we'll divide the teams up into chemical and biological, missiles, and nukes, and a team for procurement.

  The contract awarded to the company providing them with translators stipulated that they couldn't be sent into the combat zone. So documents in Iraq had to be shipped back to Qatar for translation. They had developed a list of a couple hundred key Arabic words and phrases, such as nuclear weapons, biological weapons, anthrax or botulinum toxin. If any of these words or phrases was found in a quick review of captured documents, they were assigned a higher priority and reviewed carefully.

  But it took too long to get the documents back, and then Kay found nothing new in the documents with one major exception—the personnel directory of the Military Industrial Commission.

  We don't have an interest in the personnel record of a ministry, one of the ISG military officers said.

  Well, Kay said, actually you do. The directory would lead to people. People were the key.

  Some of his group resisted going to Iraq until they had permanent facilities set up to eat, sleep and live in.

  No, Kay said again. We can eat MREs and sleep in tents or whatever, but we're going forward because you can't—you're not going to find the weapons in Doha.

  Stop searching, Kay ordered when they got to Baghdad. Forget about the WMD site list, he repeated. Start thinking and finding people.

  Living conditions had improved since the Garner era. Kay slept in an air-conditioned shipping container at the airport, and they were able to move around the city and eat at restaurants. With nothing else to do, they worked late most nights.

  Kay first had his team deconstruct Powell's February 5 U.N. speech to make sure they were pursuing all the allegations Powell had made. Supposedly it was the best intelligence, and he wanted to make sure that nobody could say later, Well, Powell said this and you ignored him. The group had a list of Iraqis who had been involved in the WMD programs, and who had been interviewed at length by the myriad U.N. inspection teams in the 1990s. Within three weeks, they had tracked down 50 to 60 of them, including scientists, technicians and senior bureaucrats. They questioned them, went through their offices, and dug through documents. A fairly consistent picture began to emerge.

  The nuke story was falling apart, Kay recalled. We were getting a clear picture of what their nuclear capability had been, and quite frankly it was worse, much worse, than it had been in '91 at the start of the first Gulf War.

  More interesting was the state of the chemical and biological weapons program. There was nothing to back up the idea that there had been stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons. They found nobody who had produced, guarded, transported or knew about those kinds of weapons.

  On Sunday, June 22, about 2,000 Shiites protested outside Bremer's headquarters, saying they wanted elections so they could form a national government. No Americans, no Saddam, all the people are for Islam, they chanted. The protesters were strongly supported by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the revered, infallible spiritual leader and guide to millions of Shiites in Iraq. Sistani refused to meet with Bremer directly, apparently because he would not meet with infidels. Sistani, then 73, had a role roughly equivalent to that of the Pope for Catholics. He was insisting on elections before a constitution was drawn up. How could they have a constitution written by people who were not elected?

  In Washington at the NSC meeting the next day, the president was upset.

  How did we get on the wrong side of the question of whether or not the Iraqis ought to have elections? he asked. Here the United States, this great democracy, has it backward. Maybe elections had to come first, before they tried to write a constitution and organize a new Iraqi society.

  For Rice, it crystallized the problem. The majority Shiites were saying that only a legitimate government that had some kind of blessing from the people could write a constitution. After decades of minority Sunni rule, the Shiites didn't want appointed people—Saddam was always appointing people—writing a constitution. It seemed reasonable to her. But others were in charge, namely Rumsfeld and Bremer. Sistani added another dimension. On June 28, he issued a fatwa—an Islamic legal decree—rejecting any U.S.-picked constitutional council, and said Iraqis should elect the drafters of their constitution.

  Bush appeared in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on July 2, 2003, to discuss a $15 billion U.S. effort to fight AIDS abroad. When he took a few questions from the press afterward, Iraq was Topic A.

  One reporter noted that the number of attacks on U.S. forces and the casualty rate were rising.

  There are some who feel like that if they attack us that we may decide to leave prematurely, the president responded, shaking his head no. They don't understand what they're talking about, if that's the case.

  A reporter started to interrupt.

  Let me finish, Bush said. There are some who feel like—that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. He swung his arm across his chest emphatically as he spoke. My answer is, 'Bring 'em on.' We've got the force necessary to deal with the security situation.

  It was an ill-advised comment, reflecting little understanding of guerrilla war, taunting and egging on the enemy, almost inviting more attacks.*

  Armitage was at the White House for a briefing for the president around that time, and Hadley took him aside.

  Some people are saying your body language is very bad at the meetings, Hadley said.

  My body language is bad? Armitage echoed.

  You're telegraphing your discomfort, Hadley said. You feel really tense.

  Steve, I don't like what the president is being told, Armitage said. So yeah, I'm very unhappy. I am not unhappy with the president. I am unhappy with the brief we are getting. It is a sophomoric brief.

  I thought that was what it is, Hadley said. He indicated that the real work was being done upstairs in the Oval Office with the president, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

  Was that supposed to set him at ease? Armitage realized that once again he and Powell were window dressing, about as influential as a couple of potted plants. In the meetings upstairs, it was mostly Rumsfeld's positive spin, because there was no one to challenge him, and no NSC or interagency review to test his assessments.

  In Saddam's Iraq, possession of a
satellite TV dish, which gave unfettered access to uncensored news, had been punishable by six months in prison and a $300 fine. With the regime gone, satellite dishes sprang up like weeds all around the country, even in the poorest areas. Huts and hovels without running water or sewer hookups would have satellite television dishes on the roof or in the yard. It was so sudden, and the U.S. tried to move fast so that the coalition message could get on the air, and at least compete with all the Arabic-language television suddenly being beamed into and enthusiastically watched in Iraq.

  The American defense contractor SAIC had been given an $82 million, no-bid contract to build up Iraqi television and radio networks.

  * At a White House press conference nearly three years later, on May 25, 2006, a reporter asked Bush to name which missteps and mistakes of your own you most regret. Bush replied: Sounds like kind of a familiar refrain here—saying 'bring it on,' kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people. I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner—you know, 'wanted dead or alive,' that kind of talk. I think in certain parts of the world it was misinterpreted, and so I learned from that.

  Rice was skeptical: SAIC doesn't do that kind of thing, she said, and sent a team over to check it out.

  Eventually there was a U.S.-sponsored television network set up. To fill out its schedule, it broadcast Arabic-language reruns from elsewhere in the Middle East. As a result, some Iraqis took to calling it the Lebanese Cooking Channel, especially after one day when most other major networks, like Qatar-based Al Jazeera, covered a significant news event live but the U.S.-sponsored network ran a foreign program on how to cook a rabbit.