Plan of Attack

Based on interviews with 75 key participants and more than three and a half hours of exclusive interviews with President Bush, Plan of Attack is part presidential history charting the decisions made during 16 critical months; part military history revealing precise details and the evolution of the Top Secret war planning under the restricted codeword Polo Step; and part a harrowing spy story as the CIA dispatches a covert paramilitary team into northern Iraq six months before the start of the war. This team recruited 87 Iraqi spies designated with the cryptonym DB/ROCKSTARS, one of whom turned over the personnel files of all 6,000 men in Saddam Hussein's personal security organization.

What emerges are astonishingly intimate portraits: President Bush in war cabinet meetings in the White House Situation Room and the Oval Office, and in private conversation; Dick Cheney, the focused and driven vice president; Colin Powell, the conflicted and cautious secretary of state; Donald Rumsfeld, the controlling war technocrat; George Tenet, the activist CIA director; Tommy Franks, the profane and demanding general; Condoleezza Rice, the ever-present referee and national security adviser; Karl Rove, the hands-on political strategist; other key members of the White House staff and congressional leadership; and foreign leaders ranging from British Prime Minister Blair to Russian President Putin.

Plan of Attack provides new details on the intelligence assessments of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction and the planning for the war's aftermath.

According to Woodward, Bush decided as early as November 2001 to wage war against Iraq, and diverted several hundred millions of dollars from the Congressional Afghanistan campaign appropriation to develop war plans. None of the inner circle except Rice was informed of the President's plans. He told Woodward that he didn't feel the need to discuss the plans because he knew his people were on board. Desperate for a way to sell the war to the American public, Bush pressed George Tenet for assurances that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Tenet gave the thumbs-up (himself, no doubt, feeling pressure to provide the answer Bush wanted), and the war was just a matter of time. Whenever counterevidence to Tenet's insistence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction showed up--as with Hans Blix's UN reports--senior advisors to the President accused the authors of the reports of deliberate deception.

One of the surprising themes in Woodward's book is just how intent George Bush was on waging war with Iraq. The story on the street, of course, is that Bush was manipulated into war by his senior advisors. But if Woodward is correct, Bush played this one himself. He was undoubtedly influenced by people like Cheny and Rumsfeld, but he made the decision himself. He wanted a war, and he got it.

This book deserves to be read alongside other recent ones: John Dean's _Worse than Watergate, for example, or Ron Suskind's _Price of Loyalty_. Thought the imperial presidency died with Richard Nixon's resignation? Think again.


Straight from the "Horse"   April 19, 2004
183 out of 202 found this review helpful

As ever, Bob Woodward has put together an incredibly cohesive book, stuffed to the gills with facts and words directly from Bush and "all the president's men." The reporter in Bob Woodward really comes out here because he lays out the facts as he was told them by the President himself and the facts are very eye-opening. In my opinion, he is restrained in putting forth his own conclusions or opinions. I found it to be just fantastic and interesting, and the facts can be interpreted to suit both sides of the aisle. Read it!


Sad Day for America   April 20, 2004
171 out of 192 found this review helpful

As a Conservative Republican, I cannot let ideology get in the way of the clear headed fact that G.W. Bush is the most embarassing, shameful, and decietful President in my lifetime (I'm 59). Secrecy does not bode well in a democratic republic. This book covers the deceit leading up to the Iraq war, an un-called for war, and a war that put U.S. Soldiers in harms way, needlessly. All the while the Bush administration was cutting military pay--and losing ground in the war on terror. Shame on them.


From Watergate to Iraqgate   April 20, 2004
98 out of 112 found this review helpful

From Watergate to Iraqgate.

Bob Woodward, who along with fellow journalist Carl Bernstein investigated the Watergate break-in and first cracked the Watergate scandal is poised to bring down the Bush administration in this fact filled book about the secret plans to invade Iraq.

Much of this information backs up Richard Clarke's recent book which said that Bush was intent of invading Iraq early on in his administration and that Sept 11 was just a convenient excuse for war.

All ready the right wing smear machine is trying to discredit Woodward. But the man is a savvy Washington insider who made sure he had the goods before he nailed his prey.

A must read.


worth reading   April 25, 2004
80 out of 89 found this review helpful

I wanted to see the reviews here at Amazon before posting my own comments, but now I have to comment on some of these posts.

It seems that if you are a die-hard supporter of president Bush you may feel conflicted about Mr. Woodward's revelations. On the one hand, he is not another Bush-hater out to attack the president or his disatrous Iraq policy, as so many have in the past few months have. On the other hand, there is information in the book that make our president look out-of-touch, ignorant, arrogant, strange and weird and, yes, even dumb. But, overall, this is not an unsympathetic view of the president.

Here you have some Bush admirers who see it as a "fair and balanced" book, an honest book that tells the truth and shows us what a great guy the prez is, EXCEPT for those parts where Mr. Woodward "lies", (i.e. when facts make the president look bad). Apparently, you can conveniently pick and choose the parts where Woodward is the well-respected journalist giving us the truth about the Bush administration, and the parts where he is just a lying liberal distorting the facts and making poor Dubya look bad.

But we know that Mr. Woodward is not a liberal, or even a Democrat, and that he has in the past written sympathetically about Mr. Bush. And this is, for the most part, or maybe in comparaison to recent books about the Bush administration, a sympathetic view, which is probably why the White House seems to be promoting it. But for those who read the book carefully and with an open mind, there is plenty here about the Bushies to worry about and it may be why Rush Limbaugh has decided that this is, after all, an anti-Bush book. Limbaugh may have burned some brain cells with those drugs but he is still a smart man and knows that if you learn some facts about Bush and his administration, as presented in this book -- not the biased, distorted propaganda he and others promote -- you are going to worry.

Take the fact that the president didn't see it necessary to discuss or share his plans for Iraq with his (earthly) father, president Bush Sr. - someone who had similar experience on the subject and might have given him, hopefully, better advice that the higher source he consulted - that seems totally unbelievable. Also, the fact that a Saudi official was informed about the plans to invade Iraq before our Secretary of State has to give us pause (what EXACTLY is the connection between this administration and the Saudis?). But even more amazing is the revelation that, apparently, it was not the president who made the final decision to go to war, but THE VICE_PRESIDENT! It may explain why Mr. Bush will only testify to the 9-11 commission with Mr. Cheney in the same room.

Interestingly, the book also tells us that it was not so much the president, but the vice-president who was feverishly obsessed with Iraq and determined to go after Saddam. So, Mr. Chenney, who didn't see it necessary to serve his country in combat as a young man was more than willing to send young men and women to fight his war in Iraq. Unfortunately, the reason behind this is something Mr. Woodward does not explain. He leaves perhaps the most important question unanswered: Why, really, did these people take us into this, obvioulsly poorly planned, war? Why the rush to get Saddam? No one has yet explained that too convincingly.

Overall, this an informative and well-written book, even if it leaves you with some unanswered questions.