Posted on 04/21/2004 10:16:02 PM PDT by Utah Girl
Bob Woodward's new book, Plan of Attack, is like a play in which the most important scenes occur offstage. In a "Note to Readers," Woodward writes:
The aim of this book is to provide the first detailed, behind-the-scenes account of how and why President George W. Bush, his war council and allies decided to launch a preemptive war in Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein.Yet this is precisely what the book does not provide. Woodward never tells us why Bush decided to go to war. Nor does he pin down just when he made his decision.
His opening anecdote—and, as usual, Woodward furnishes lots of great anecdotes (the book is worth reading for the chuckles alone)—has Bush dramatically taking Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld aside, after a National Security Council meeting on Nov. 21, 2001 ("just 72 days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks"), and asking him to update the war plan for Iraq.
Yet, 24 pages later, we learn that Rumsfeld "raised with his staff the possibility of going after Iraq as a response" just two hours after the attack. Woodward goes on, "The next day [i.e., 9/12], in the inner circle of Bush's war cabinet, Rumsfeld asked if the terrorist attacks did not present an 'opportunity' to launch against Iraq." Much later in the book (Page 410), at a dinner celebrating the toppling of Saddam (or at least of his statues), Vice President Dick Cheney tells conservative defense analyst Ken Adelman that "after 9/11 … the president understood what had to be done. He had to do Afghanistan first, sequence the attacks, but after Afghanistan—'soon thereafter'—the president knew he had to do Iraq."
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.msn.com ...
The media seems focused on the Saudi's and Prince Bandar as well as Colin Powell. The media are saying things that aren't even in the book.
Extremely cheap and reliable "smart bombs" (such as the satellite-guided JDAMs,which the Air Force and the Navy are buying in reassuringly ample quantities) can now be dropped with great precision from planes flying at10,000 feet—an altitude well beyond the range of anti-aircraft fire
Anybody who could write those lines has pus for brains. He updated the article to suggest SEAD would take care of fixed missile sites, and MOBILE SAMs COULDN'T REACH THAT HIGH.
Sorry for yelling. It's late, I'm lit, and Pissed Off.
Reasonable people can disagree about funding priorities. But they should at least HAVE A FARGIN CLUE ABOUT WHAT THEY'RE BABBLING ABOUT
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