Free Republic

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - More than three years before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, American diplomats warned Saudi officials that Osama bin Laden might target civilian aircraft, according to a newly declassified State Department cable. The cable was one of two documents released Thursday by the National Security Archive, a research organization at George Washington University that obtained them under the Freedom of Information Act. The other was a memorandum written five days after the 2001 attacks by George J. Tenet, then director of central intelligence, to his top deputies, titled "We're at War." The June 1998 cable reported...

The Atlantic Monthly | June 2003   The doyen of capital insiders has written a misleading account of the debate that led to war   by Christopher Hitchens   .....   Bush at War by Bob Woodward At Simon & Schuster the preferred excuse for most journalistic prose—that it is "the first draft of history"—has long found its supposed apotheosis in the work of Bob Woodward. Russell Baker once described the life of the Washington-beat reporter as requiring one to become "a megaphone for the convenience of frauds," and Woodward has alternately upgraded and downgraded the job description. His work...

IT IS tempting to say that this sudden victory has won President Bush a second term. That is certainly the exultant mood in the White House this weekend. But although Saddam Hussein has gone, the peace is hardly won. The scenes from Baghdad of hospitals being stripped of cardiac machines and incubators, and battered office desks and swivel chairs being dragged from the wrecked doorways of dusty offices must disabuse anyone of the notion that Iraq shed of its dictator has instantly become Minnesota. That anarchy, for the moment entirely unrestrained, makes it impossible to say yet that the...

On the last page of the Epilogue of “Bush At War” by Bob Woodward he writes this: On February 5, 2002, about 25 men representing three different Special Forces units and three CIA paramilitary teams gathered outside Gardez, Afghanistan, in the east, about 40 miles from the Pakistani border. It was very cold, and they were bundled in camping or outdoor clothing. No one was in uniform. Many had beards. The men stood or kneeled on this desolate site in front of a helicopter. An American flag was standing in the background. There was a pile of rocks arranged as...

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN JAN 05, 2003 19:25:38 ET XXXXX WHITE HOUSE ANGER AT BOOK BY BUSH 'AXIS OF EVIL' SPEECHWRITER; CONCERN MEDIA TOUR WILL MUDDLE MESSAGE; FRUM DESCRIBES PRESIDENT AS 'TART' **World Exclusive** Former Bush speechwriter David Frum -- credited with the phrase 'Axis of Evil' -- has infuriated top officials at the White House with his controversial new book, the first insider account of the W. Bush Administration, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. Frum helped make international headlines when President Bush's 2002 State of the Union address linked international terrorists to Iran, Iraq and North Korea. But...

In-Depth: Bob Woodward Author and investigative reporter Bob Woodward talks about his journalism career and his writings and responded to audience telephone calls, faxs and electronic mail. He is the author of 12 nonfiction books, including two, All the President's Men and "The Final Days, that grew out of his and Carl Bernstein's Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting on the scandals surrounding the Nixon administration in the early 1970s. His latest book, Bush at War" is a behind-the-scenes look at President George W. Bush's administration and its war on terrorism. Mr. Woodward has written books about five presidential administrations, former Senator...

Well, the worst is over. The Washington Post's three-part excerpt from the Washington Post's Bob Woodward book, "Bush at War, " (copyright Bob Woodward, Simon & Schuster), has been published -- and the Republic yet stands.