Bob Woodward

by State of Denial (lit)

  To an outsider, McLaughlin recognized, it might look like he had taken the aluminum tubes account as his own. But this was because he was engaged. No, he felt people below him whom he had trusted had not been aggressive enough in surfacing their doubts. Whatever the excuses for the WMD intelligence, he, Tenet and the CIA had failed. Tenet would later acknowledge in private that the CIA didn't have a leg to stand on.

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  up on the top floor of the Federal Courthouse on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, one of the enduring legacies of the Reagan Revolution was moving about his expansive chambers. Senior Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia was following the WMD controversy closely in the press. Silberman, 68, sat on the second most important and prestigious court in the United States, after the Supreme Court. The court had been a liberal bastion until Reagan made a succession of conservative D.C. Circuit appointments—Antonin Scalia, who had gone on to the Supreme Court; Robert Bork, whose Supreme Court appointment was rejected by the Senate; Kenneth Starr, who later became the independent counsel who investigated President Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky; and Silberman, in 1985.

  He was still there nearly two decades later in senior status, meaning he had to work only three months a year.

  Silberman considered both Cheney and Rumsfeld his close personal friends. He had been deputy attorney general during the last months of the Nixon administration and acting attorney general during part of the Ford administration, and had worked closely with the current vice president and secretary of defense.

  Silberman knew something about intelligence. On the wall of one of the rooms in his chambers there was a picture of him with President Ford and Rumsfeld. At the time, Rumsfeld, Ford's White House chief of staff, had been trying to persuade Silberman, then acting attorney general, to come to the White House as intelligence czar. When Rumsfeld vaguely dangled the possibility of becoming CIA director six months after he took the White House job, Silberman declined. He didn't think it was possible to run intelligence from the White House even for six months. More than a quarter century later, it was Silberman who swore Rumsfeld in as secretary of defense in the Oval Office on the sixth day of the Bush presidency, January 26, 2001.

  Silberman was not at all surprised, only days after David Kay's We were almost all wrong congressional testimony, when a call came in from the vice president. In an interview, Silberman recalled the conversation.

  We want to have a commission to look at the intelligence community, Cheney told Silberman on the phone, to determine whether the intelligence community properly evaluated the question of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He wanted Silberman to be its co-chair.

  Silberman felt comfortable enough to call the vice president of the United States by his first name. I think that means, Dick, I'd have to resign from the bench.

  Cheney said he thought that was the case.

  Let me think about that and talk to Ricky about it, Silberman said. Ricky, his wife who was also a lawyer, had worked with the vice president's wife, Lynne Cheney, on the Independent Women's Forum, a group of conservative women who had supported Clarence Thomas's Supreme Court nomination.

  Silberman enjoyed his judgeship, but he said he felt in wartime he had to answer the vice president's call. The next morning, he called Cheney to say he would take the job. A day after that, in his telling, he went over to meet with White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, and some other lawyers from the White House and the Justice Department. They had some welcome news: A senior judge was not prohibited from accepting appointment to such presidential commissions.

  That makes it rather easy, since I was prepared to resign, Silberman said.

  President Bush called Tom Foley, the former Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, who was now a Washington lawyer. He needed a Democrat to serve as co-chairman of the commission so that it would be bipartisan. Foley agreed to be the co-chairman.

  By February 5, Silberman was over at the White House, meeting with Card to work out the particulars.

  I just got the most extraordinary phone call from Tom Foley, saying that he couldn't serve, Card said. News of his participation on the commission had leaked to the press, and Foley had come under pressure from congressional Democrats not to participate. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat, had convinced Foley to back out, Card said, arguing that the presidential commission was designed to give Bush political cover on the failure to find WMD nearly a year after the Iraq invasion.

  A commission appointed and controlled by the White House will not have the independence or credibility necessary to investigate these issues, wrote Pelosi and two senior Senate Democrats, Minority Leader Tom Daschle and Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, in a letter to Bush. Even some of your own statements and those of Vice President Cheney need independent scrutiny.

  Privately, they had convinced Foley not to lend his name to the effort. Card said the president was disappointed.

  Bush and Cheney dropped by Card's office.

  What do you think, Larry? the president asked. Do you want to be chairman by yourself?

  I'm not sure that's wise, Silberman replied. I was appointed as a Republican. I'll be perceived as a Republican. I think there ought to be a co-chairman.

  I think so too, Bush said.

  Bush, Cheney, Card and Silberman started to brainstorm for a co-chair who could give the commission some political balance and themselves political cover.

  What about Chuck Robb? Bush suggested. Charles S. Robb was a former Democratic governor and senator from Virginia, and son-in-law of Lyndon Johnson. Robb had been a Marine captain in Vietnam, and as a senator for 12 years, from 1989 to 2001, he had served on each of the key national security committees—Foreign Relations, Armed Services and Intelligence.

  Robb was viewed as a moderate, even conservative Democrat. He was known in Virginia as an almost-Republican. He had supported the 1991 Persian Gulf War and criticized President Clinton's decision to rule out using ground troops in Kosovo in 1999.

  The president called Robb, who agreed to serve.

  Bush, Cheney, Card and Silberman then reviewed some lists of names to fill out the commission. Silberman knew they would need at least one real, liberal Democrat and so he suggested Judge Patricia Wald, a Carter appointee with whom he had served on the federal appeals court. The two were ideological opposites, but Silberman said he had enormous respect for her.

  Zeal, intelligence, courage and integrity, he said.

  Well, it's your pick, Card responded.

  Later, when Karl Rove heard about the Democrats on the committee, he was taken aback.

  Pat Wald? Rove joked to Bush in disbelief. Don't you remember, Mr. President? Back in the antediluvian age, she was a Commie.

  Bush told Rice that he didn't want a congressional investigation that resembled the Church and Pike committees after Watergate in 1975-76 that exposed CIA and NSA spying on U.S. citizens, drug testing and assassination plots of foreign leaders including Cuba's Fidel Castro. The president thought those investigations had been witch hunts. They had demoralized the CIA and had wound up limiting presidential power.

  The Democratic leaders in the House and Senate wanted to model the WMD investigation on the 9/11 Commission created by law, with the president and Congress each appointing half its members. Massachusetts Senator John F. Kerry, who was emerging as the leader in the race for the Democratic nomination for president, called for an independent inquiry into the WMD intelligence.

  It goes to the core of why the nation went to war, he said. If there is that kind of failure, the kind of separation between the truth of what the CIA tells the White House and what happens, then we have to separate that investigation from the White House so the American people get the truth.

  The president was not about to lose control of the investigation. At 1:30 p.m. Friday, February 6, he took the podium in the W
hite House press briefing room to announce that he was signing an executive order appointing nine people to the Silberman-Robb Commission. They would have broad authority not just to look at Iraq WMD intelligence, but to study WMD intelligence worldwide and look at all U.S. intelligence capabilities and organizations.

  Bush then added, Members of the commission will issue their report by March 31, 2005. That would be five months after the presidential election.

  It was clear and understood that we would not be asked to evaluate the administration's use of the intelligence, Silberman later recalled. And frankly, if that had been the charge I wouldn't have wanted the position. It was too political. Everybody knew what the president and the vice president had said about the intelligence. They can make their own judgment as to whether that was appropriate or fair or whatever.

  A few Democrats expressed outrage at the limitation. Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat and 29-year veteran of the House, said the commission had been told to ignore the elephant in the middle of the room, which is how the intelligence was used and misused by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other senior administration officials. Senator Harry Reid, the number two Democrat, said the commission had been designed to protect the president.

  Prince Bandar was back in the Oval Office on Friday, February 20, 2004, to meet with Bush, Rice and Card. The Saudis had received a message from Saddam's wife, who was in Jordan, asking for permission for herself and her daughters to visit the holy site of Mecca in the Saudi Kingdom. It was going to be approved but the visit would be kept secret.

  Next Bandar reported that the Crown Prince was committed to his political and economic reforms. He would expand participation by all Saudis. But we are asking that America should ease on continuous rhetoric on this issue in order for the Saudi individual not to think that we are doing this because of pressure from the United States, Bandar said.

  Bush repeated his appreciation for the Crown Prince's vision and efforts on democratic reform. Maybe the speed of this process could be sort of expedited, Bush said, agreeing that the reforms had to be homegrown. He then thanked Bandar for what the Saudis were doing on oil— essentially flooding the market and trying to keep the price as low as possible. He expressed appreciation for the policy and the impact it could have during the election year.

  On a new and important subject, Bush said that the United States had a program of $3 billion in aid to Pakistan. General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, was in a precarious position. On December 11 and again on December 25, Musharraf had almost been assassinated.

  Pakistan is in desperate need of 26 helicopters that cost about $250 million, Bush said. Since putting the program through Congress could take a very long time, he asked his friend, the Crown Prince, if he could pick up the tab for these helicopters.

  The Bell helicopters, model 412EP NVG-compatible, are ideal Special Operations aircraft for tracking terrorists and potential assassins—in other words, Osama bin Laden and Musharraf's violent opponents. They are helicopters with a track record, used by the British and Canadian armed forces.

  Bandar said he would have to convey the request to the Crown Prince.

  Four days later, the Pentagon gave Bandar a detailed briefing on the helicopter fleet. The written briefing pitched Bandar. These aircraft will provide operational service and support to further U.S. and allied strategic interests in the region. The Crown Prince soon agreed and Saudi Arabia paid $235 million for 24 of the Bell helicopters for the Pakistan army, including a training and maintenance program, and technical representatives and spare parts, according to Saudi records.

  The Saudis had honored special requests from American presidents before. In the 1980s, Reagan's national security adviser had asked Bandar to arrange for about $22 million in covert funding to the Nicaraguan contras, Reagan's favorite freedom fighters, after Congress had cut off contra funding. Now the request was not, at least in this case, for covert money, but the price of friendship and doing business was higher, 10 times higher.

  Bremer had folded on the issue of Saddam's old army by February 2004. He told a leading Iraqi, The Coalition has no principled objection to former army personnel. About 80 percent of the New Iraqi Army and Civil Defense Corps are former soldiers. All officers and NCOs are. The officers and noncommissioned officers were the ones that Bremer and Slocombe had been worried about. Allegedly they had the Baathist connections. Now all of the new army's leadership came from the old army.

  That same month, General Abizaid proposed at an NSC meeting that he begin embedding U.S. forces in Iraqi military units. The U.S. troops could provide the leadership, intelligence and communications.

  Don, that's great, the president said, turning to Rumsfeld. Bush said they should make a big deal of this publicly because it would show that they were shifting the burden of the war to the Iraqis—exactly the theme he wanted emphasized. This is terrific. Bush next turned to Dan Bartlett, Bartlett, I want a—

  Oh, Mr. President, I haven't approved this yet, Rumsfeld interjected. He was very worried about vetting the Iraqi units who would be getting U.S. troops. In other wars American officers had been fragged —killed by their own troops. What kinds of safeguards could they put in place to keep U.S. troops from being fragged by insurgents or other enemies in Iraqi units? It's a recommendation to me and when I'm happy with it, I'll bring it to you, Mr. President.

  Okay, Bush said. I understand, but when you approve it, if you do approve it, let me know so that we can take proper advantage of it.

  Frank Miller of the NSC staff had been sitting in on the meeting, and afterward he tracked down Hadley.

  Steve, he said, we are embedding people in Iraqi units. He was in touch with officers in Iraq and it was already being done, even if it wasn't an official program at the Pentagon level.

  No, Hadley said, hoping it wasn't true.

  Steve, trust me. It's Frank. I'm talking to people who know what's going on. We are doing this.

  Okay, Hadley said. Thank you.

  Later, Miller was talking with one of the four-stars in the Pentagon. Why won't Rumsfeld approve this thing? the general asked. Is the president putting his thumb on this and saying, 'Don't do it'?

  No, quite the contrary, Miller said. The president wants to go. The president wants to take advantage of this.

  Rumsfeld eventually more or less approved of the embedding, quietly. It later became the major U.S. method of upgrading the combat capability of the Iraqi troops. The news slowly made its way into some newspaper stories, but it did not get the rollout or public relations big bang Bush had wanted.

  Rice was hungry for data and intelligence. She wanted to know what was really happening Over There. She kept telling Frank Miller, Get me more. Bring me more.

  In March 2004, she sent Miller to Iraq to find out what things were really like. He went as her representative, but he tried to downplay his NSC credentials. Not helpful, he thought. He wanted to avoid polished-up presentations calibrated to impress and perhaps mislead visitors from Washington. He never asked to meet with Bremer. He didn't think it would be useful, but also he didn't want to risk being turned down. Such was Bremer's perceived independence from NSC oversight.

  Miller was struck by how the Coalition Provisional Authority had become a hermit city, ensconced in the Green Zone. He explained to one CPA official how he planned to fly around the country to visit with the U.S. military division commanders who were in charge of the tens of thousands of U.S. troops.

  Wow, the CPA official said. I wish we could do that. I wish we could see the country.

  It was telling, Miller thought. There was a sense of lethargy, like a bunch of basketball players passing the ball back and forth, back and forth, all reluctant to take a shot. It's March and the turnover is set for June, he thought. Quit passing and launch one at the basket.

  Miller and the two people he'd brought with him—retired Army Colonel Jeff Jones from the NSC, and an active-duty Army colonel from the
Joint Staff—linked up with the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad, where the deputy commander, a one-star general named Mark Hertling, was an old friend of Miller's from his Pentagon days. The group joined a Humvee patrol through an area just south of the notorious Shiite Baghdad slum, Sadr City. Screaming poverty, Miller thought—no fresh water, few working sewers. People were living in hovels and throwing trash and human waste in their front yards.

  American soldiers in Sadr City and elsewhere now seemed to be acting as much as engineers as infantrymen, setting up water distribution points and improving some roads. But the only money to fund these ad hoc projects came from the military's emergency funds, called the Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP). Miller made a note that they would need to expand and expedite these CERP funds— walking-around money for the battalion and brigade commanders—as they were the only expenditures that seemed to have a visible impact on the population.

  It was striking, Miller thought, that the Iraqis he saw seemed generally friendly, or at least not antagonistic. Little kids came running out, smiling, saying hello, and giving them a thumbs-up sign as they moved through. It wasn't the middle finger, he noted, not realizing that in Iraq the thumbs-up sign traditionally was the equivalent of the American middle-finger salute.

  Miller went on to Tikrit, where the 4th Infantry Division was operating, and where Saddam Hussein had been captured three months earlier.

  The division's senior officers said they believed they had broken or captured much of the senior leadership of the insurgency. The mere fact that Iraqis were talking to the Americans was a promising sign, and they were getting better intelligence from Iraqis, lots of walk-ins with good information. Nobody seemed to want a return to Saddam. The divisions were setting up the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, using their emergency funds—the CERP money again, Miller noted—to buy weapons and uniforms.