Book Says Bush Ignored Urgent Warning on Iraq (nyt---“State of Denial,” )

[rodeodance]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/29/washington/29account.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

For your please-there is a big photo with the story:
President Bush at Camp David in June during a teleconference on Iraq with Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and Donald H. Rumsfeld.


By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: September 29, 2006

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 — The White House ignored an urgent warning in September 2003 from a top Iraq adviser who said that thousands of additional American troops were desperately needed to quell the insurgency there, according to a new book by Bob Woodward, the Washington Post reporter and author. The book describes a White House riven by dysfunction and division over the war.

The warning is described in “State of Denial,” scheduled for publication on Monday by Simon & Schuster. The book says President Bush’s top advisers were often at odds among themselves, and sometimes were barely on speaking terms, but shared a tendency to dismiss as too pessimistic assessments from American commanders and others about the situation in Iraq.

As late as November 2003, Mr. Bush is quoted as saying of the situation in Iraq: “I don’t want anyone in the cabinet to say it is an insurgency. I don’t think we are there yet.”

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is described as disengaged from the nuts-and-bolts of occupying and reconstructing Iraq — a task that was initially supposed to be under the direction of the Pentagon — and so hostile toward Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, that President Bush had to tell him to return her phone calls. The American commander for the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, is reported to have told visitors to his headquarters in Qatar in the fall of 2005 that “Rumsfeld doesn’t have any credibility anymore” to make a public case for the American strategy for victory in Iraq. ...........

[acmavm]

There wouldn't have been any insurgency to 'quell' if we hadn't

attacked a defenseless country that hadn't done squat to us.

Right bob? Oh yeah, you're one of the supporters of this way. A neocon.

Never mind.

[meegbear]

1. Woodward has no credibility to me ...

he knew this shit was going on, but ignored it so he could have 'exclusive access' to the administration.

Fuck him.

[Sticky]

2. The 2 excerpts released are to grab the Dems

so we buy the book. That is the exact strategty used when he released the last book.
I have no doubt this book will be another bush love-in.

[exlrrp]

5. Agreed

Thought i was the only one who thought that

[Botany]

3. Ah Mr. Woodward, I have been reading this stuff on DU for years.

Guess Bob has tested to see which way the wind is blowing.


As late as November 2003, Mr. Bush is quoted as saying of the situation in Iraq:
“I don’t want anyone in the cabinet to say it is an insurgency. I don’t think we
are there yet.”

Mr. Rumsfeld reached into political matters at the periphery of his responsibilities,
according to the book. At one point, Mr. Bush traveled to Ohio, where the Abrams
battle tank was manufactured. Mr. Rumsfeld phoned Mr. Card to complain that Mr. Bush
should not have made the visit because Mr. Rumsfeld thought the heavy tank was
incompatible with his vision of a light and fast military of the future. Mr. Woodward
wrote that Mr. Card believed that Mr. Rumsfeld was “out of control.”

[SpiralHawk]

4. Hell, Bush ignored 9/11 also. Now he is AWOL on another issue.

He was AWOL on 9/11 -- after having been told TWICE that America was under attack, he just sat there for 1/2 an hour reading "My Pet Goat" and doing nothing. (The facts of the matter: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/ )

So it should should come as no surprise that he is AWOL on real dangers to our men and women in uniform -- placed in harm's way by AWOL Bush and his Republicon Oil Cronies to boost their massive profits.

[NoSunWithoutShadow]

6. Can't stand Woody but these jumped out from the article

The 537-page book describes tensions among senior officials from the very beginning of the administration. Mr. Woodward writes that in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Tenet believed that Mr. Rumsfeld was impeding the effort to develop a coherent strategy to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. Mr. Rumsfeld questioned the electronic signals from terrorism suspects that the National Security Agency had been intercepting, wondering whether they might be part of an elaborate deception plan by Al Qaeda.

On July 10, 2001, the book says, Mr. Tenet and his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, met with Ms. Rice at the White House to impress upon her the seriousness of the intelligence the agency was collecting about an impending attack. But both men came away from the meeting feeling that Ms. Rice had not taken the warnings seriously.


(Just like they ignored the August 6 PDB.)

[Historic NY]

10. Hey you think the Bush administration was so distracted

by fighting with themselves that Clinton's penis wasn't the cause of 911. Perhaps we should take that tactic.

[calimary]

12. Of course she wasn't taking it seriously. Her boyfriend wasn't that

interested, so why should she be?

[indepat]

7. Some infer urgent warnings of impending attack on US were ignored

[UTUSN]

8. Have the 29%ers given up trying to think of REASONS behind the mess? n/t

[Ilsa]

9. Nope. Their hatred of all things Clinton will keep them blinded

to Dumbya's messes and incompetency and the evil within this mis-Administration.

[Rageneau]

11. Worst...President...Ever!