Plan of Attack

Upon its publication, the Bush administration roundly denied many of the accounts in the book that demonstrated conflict within their circles, poor judgment, or lousy planning, but the Bush/Cheney re-election campaign nonetheless listed Plan of Attack as recommended reading. And it is. It shows alarming problems in the way the war was conceived and planned, but it also demonstrates the tremendous conviction and dedication of the people who decided to carry it out. --John Moe, Amazon.com

Reader Reviews:

A Cyclopean rush to Baghdad (5/5 people found this helpful)

At the beginning of 2002 the Bush administration, as a result of the 9/11 attacks, had made a commitment to oust the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, responsible in their eyes for harbouring Osama bin-Laden's al Qaeda network, with unprecedented support both at home and overseas.
Bob Woodward's enthralling new book details, possibly in too exhaustive detail, how the Bush administration then took the decision to concentrate almost solely on the ousting of Saddam Hussein from Iraq, in the process losing most of the aforementioned support. All the main protagonists (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell etc) were interviewed several times about the planning and decision making processes that took place over the course of 2002 up until the actual invasion in March 2003. Thankfully Woodward doesn't install his own opinions or prejudices on the right or wrongs of their decisions, and therefore we are left with a well balanced book, with the main protagonists able to justify themselves over the course of their interviews.
Whether you believe the war in Iraq was justified or not, this book probably won't change your mind now, however I believe that it will at least give you an appreciation of the opposing view. Opponents of the war will have to concede that the United Nations was particularly ineffectual, with the author detailing how the French delayed resolution 1441 over the insertion of the word 'or' instead of the word 'and', meaning that Iraq would need to fail two tests instead of one to be in violation of the resolution.
Those in favour of the war would likewise have to concede that the administration was focused too squarely on Iraq from early on, thereby hindering its operation in Afghanistan, when arguably North Korea, Iran and the Israel/Palestine problem were more threatening to long-term security.
One of the main things I noticed is that, despite the months of planning and the endless war-game scenarios carried out, no-one foresaw what actually happened in Iraq, namely the dissolving away of the Iraqi regime and the morphing of the Iraqi military into Iraqi insurgency. Also no viable exit strategy was ever finalised, leaving the likelihood that U.S. forces will be in Iraq for years to come.
As mentioned earlier this book succeeds admirably in giving us the 'how', I'm not sure it quite succeeds on the 'why', though judging from some of the interviews it was something that was never really discussed within the administration, all of them convinced (except Powell) that it was the right way to go.
Whether they were right or not, well only History will tell us.

Woodward is now the Isaac Newton to Nafeez Ahmed's Einstein (7/18 people found this helpful)

The lionization of Robert Woodward since Watergate, while earned, has become woefully exaggerated in the 21st century. The new Bob Woodwards, practicing real life-altering investigative journalism, are now being ignored by him; just as he was in the early 70s by the reporters in Nixon's back pocket. Woodward's book PLAN OF ATTACK in that context, is, like all of his books, well-written. But, like ten percent real penicillin in a world where only full strength will cure a disease, the facts he leaves out--purposely--are frightening.Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed
BEHIND THE WAR ON TERROR
From P>Woodward gives an insider's look at the seemingly intimate struggles of the Bush, Jr. Administration over Iraq. But as he is definitively a political insider now, with clout to protect, Ahmed, an established outsider, forces us to question the very relevancy and legitimacy of Woodward's entire perspective in a way with which he could never be comfortable. Woodward essentially gives us investigative journalism-lite*. Ahmed gives us straight, no chaser, investigative scholarship, the likes of which can only demand a paradigm shift in one's perception of modern government, regardless of how you choose to reinterpret his fact-finding when you put the book down. If you've ever wondered what the Catholic bishops must have felt when reading the work of Galileo for the first time, or the Protestant community of the 19th century reading the work of Darwin, or what the Newtonian physics scientific community felt seeing Einstein prove his point about relativity, unlike Woodward (now the Newton to Ahmed's Einstein), the scholarship of Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed will let you know in perhaps the most politically frightening way possible.

In the end, whether or not you choose to follow Ahmed to the end of his theories, you will be left with a totally new understanding of the raison d'etre of both modern history and modern war. If you didn't know that FDR knew the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor because he set America up to be bombed in 1941, in order to get the isolationist-minded American populace to join World War Two--and how he did it--you will learn with Ahmed. If you didn't know that there were plans in the military of terrorizing and even killing American citizens in Miami and throughout Florida in such a way that it would look like Castro's military did it, to justify an American invasion of Cuba in 1962, you will learn with Ahmed. If you didn't know that the total absence of any military response to the hijacking of American planes before they hit the World Trade Center on September 11th is something that has NEVER happened before in FAA or military history, you will learn with Ahmed. If you had no idea of the unusual and otherwise inexplicably heavy trade on the stock market that took place days before September 11th regarding Airline and oil stocks, you will learn with Ahmed.

1) hundreds of other provable historical/foreign policy facts of the European/American 20th Century from a plethora of credible sources--in and out of America--he brings to light, revealing a unified and unchanged philosophy of government and power,
2) the political/economic agendas behind the secret psychological architecture of modern day war explained with amazing clarity,
3) the revealing of our current Administration's relationship with International Oil cartels for the past three generations, and
4) the seemingly infinite number of both otherwise inexplicable anamolies AND
examples of unprecedented ineptitude regarding both the intelligence community
and the military's failure to prevent 9/11 from happening,

Iraq is just a little bit bigger than Saddam Hussein. And the refusal of the American media to reveal the nature of the global, humanitarian/genocidal scandals of this administration makes it a corrupt institution beyond salvaging. Woodward's PLAN OF ATTACK is essentially an apologia to the Bush II administration, to true investigative journalism he once iconically symbolized, and to modern "courtier" journalism (as Cornel West so politely called the new American whorehouse of the far Right) that is now called the news, simultaneously. As such, the divided loyalties inherent in the book's construction definitively obscure and cheapen the content's intrinsic relevance.

WAR ON FREEDOM (which explains why exactly 9/11 happened, and how) and BEHIND THE WAR ON TERROR (which explains exactly why we really invaded Iraq years later) by Ahmed are the real books every American needs to read, in order to save our Nation's soul--the soul Woodward seems to have sold with PLAN OF ATTACK for the benefit of controlling his now tenuous reputation in journalistic history.

No smoke without fire (8/8 people found this helpful)

After all the hype and controversy, this book is a little disappointing. If you want to know all about the how of the Iraq war, then it should satisfy you. It does indeed live up to its title and tells us more than most of us need to know about the military planning of a modern war by a superpower in a distant country.

What many people are interested in though, is the why of the Iraq war. Bob Woodward doesn't supply us with a lot of information about this, possibly because this would involve an investigation in which he would get a lot less help from officialdom. To be fair, he does ask some pointed questions and then leaves the reader to draw their own conclusions without openly suggesting what they should think. This is quite skilful on his part. After all, the amazing access he managed to obtain from the key players in the Administration means you are getting much of the information from the horse's mouth. But you end up questioning that level of cooperation. Why were Bush and co. so keen to accord lengthy interviews on such a sensitive subject? Is it just another part of the smokescreen laid down to hoodwink public opinion?

The most valuable contribution of the book is that it clearly demonstrates, without harping on the fact, that Bush was planning the removal of Saddam even before 9-11 or having any motive remotely connected with international terrorism. The tragedy seems to have been that the simple conception of the possibility of a war led to its planning, and that this planning made the war an inevitability after a while. In this sense, there was never going to be a shred of hope for diplomacy - it was just a farce played out for public opinion. Woodward's book does lay all this bare and is required reading if you want to be able to make even a partially informed opinion on the Iraq war. But it does seem to play down the excitement level of what it is tacitly implying and doesn't even begin to criticize those whose motives and actions look extremely murky.

Drilling for a well of democracy (3/4 people found this helpful)

This book does cast some light on the main mystery of the Iraq war, which is as I see it why Bush and such skilful and seasoned politicians as Blair and Aznar would risk their careers in politics against the opposition of so many people to eject a weakened tyrant who was no longer a real threat to any nation. Woodward's book confirms that WMD and the war on terrorism were not the central concerns in this context. The main design, Woodward emphasizes, is the vision of a transformed Middle East (and a far better world) as democracy takes hold in Iraq and later in the entire region.

Most of us are understandably sceptical about such grandiose visions until we see some evidence that they can work. We have trouble seeing how a man who never took the slightest interest in foreign affairs and world cultures before he became president could be so brilliant as to detect an extraordinary opportunity where most experts see nothing but difficulties.

It appears that Bush has made an oil-man's gamble: search for the gusher where everyone doubts you will find it; if by some amazing luck you succeed, you hit the jackpot, and achieve a greatness few US presidents have attained. But if not, heck, it was a worthy fight (for some reason or another), even if the ultimate aim was impossible to achieve. After it's all over, there will still be enough people who will be thankful to Bush for having used America's military power in that part of the world. Life shall go on, even almost flourishingly, for the Bushes and their friends.

Behind the Scenes Build-Up (3/5 people found this helpful)

This book is a gritty account of who-said-what leading up the start of war to remove Saddam. It tells of the presidents focus on terrorism and how he was driven to do what he beleived was right. All the key personalities are profiled such as Cheney, Tenet, Rice, Powell and Rumsfeld. The books shows the internal struggle and provides a rare insight into political situations that are only in the very recent past.

If you are like me and crave an understanding on the how and why not just the when then you will be thoroughly pleased with this read.

Bob Woodward

Editorial Review: