The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 (Bush at War Part 4) (Pt. 4)

Additional The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 (Bush at War Part 4) (Pt. 4) Information

The White House launches a secret strategy review that excludes the military. General George Casey, the commander in Iraq, believes that President Bush does not understand the war and eventually concludes he has lost the president's confidence. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also conduct a secret strategy review that goes nowhere. On the verge of revolt, they worry that the military will be blamed for a failure in Iraq.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice strongly opposes a surge of additional U.S. forces and confronts the president, who replies that her suggestions would lead to failure. The president keeps his decision to fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld from Vice President Dick Cheney until two days before he announces it. A retired Army general uses his high-level contacts to shape decisions about the war, as Bush and Cheney use him to deliver sensitive messages outside the chain of command.

For months, the administration's strategy reviews continue in secret, with no deadline and no hurry, in part because public disclosure would harm Republicans in the November 2006 elections. National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley tells Rice, "We've got to do it under the radar screen because the electoral season is so hot."

The War Within provides an exhaustive account of the struggles of General David Petraeus, who takes over in Iraq during one of the bleakest and most violent periods of the war. It reveals how breakthroughs in military operations and surveillance account for much of the progress as violence in Iraq plummets in the middle of 2007.

Woodward interviewed key players, obtained dozens of never-before-published documents, and had nearly three hours of exclusive interviews with President Bush. The result is a stunning, firsthand history of the years from mid-2006, when the White House realizes the Iraq strategy is not working, through the decision to surge another 30,000 U.S. troops in 2007, and into mid-2008, when the war becomes a fault line in the presidential election.

The War Within addresses head-on questions of leadership, not just in war but in how we are governed and the dangers of unwarranted secrecy.

What Customers Say About The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 (Bush at War Part 4) (Pt. 4):

I've read all of Woodward's Bush Presidency series. Still at times a great read. As a whole this series is obviously excellent. But I think this is the weakest of all four of the books. If you've read the others you should read this to end the series. I wonder if he will do the same thing with the Obama presidency.

In the end, Woodward's book are damning of Bush, and it's hard to argue with his conclusions about Bush's deficiencies. Woodward includes a useful concluding chapter summarizing his four books. The sad thing is that none of this advances the debate over just what in the heck to do over there. Whether the injection of American military, political, and economic power into the Middle East might serve to stabilize the region much like America's 50 years of effort stabilized post-war Europe is an intriguing question. But is that minimal force the 130,000 we already have there (plus the enormously expensive web of private contractors and economic aid). Woodward paints Bush as a leader who relies on positive thinking and can-do spirit -- indeed, Bush views this as his most important role as President. Yet what has been created is a dysfunctional local polity wholly dependent on and adaptive to a large, permanent American presence.

While this can be a source of some strength and accomplishment, it can also, in Woodward's view, result in disastrous groupthink and refusal to let the facts get in the way of policy analysis. This doomed the effort from the start and gave us the worst of both worlds -- the burdens of war and quagmire without any of the benefits of achieving stability. This book focuses on the growing civil disorder in Iraq after 2006 and the adoption of the "Surge" as the tactical response to meet it. Woodward also seems more interested in breathless recounting of the lives of the powerful than in a broad view of the historical and political questions that bedevil the United States in the Middle East.

This is the last of Woodward's four books on Bush, all of which are worthwhile and contain interviews with Bush and others within his Administration that are important historical documents. Woodward does not offer a vision of a strategy that would work. Declaring victory and leaving, as was done in Vietnam, seems unpalatable given the vital American interests affected by instability in this region.In the end, Obama's idea of weaning Iraq away from anything more than a minimal American presence seems like one viable option. The other option would be to do what we did in the cold war: give up Bush's polyannic hopes for "liberty" everywhere and install some son-of-a-bitch who can restore order and who can be "our" son-of-a-bitch. However, like the Vietnam policy of the early 1970s, this is a tactical victory only. Yet Woodward repeats the accounts uncritically. What is infuriating about Bush and his Administration is the failure to build national consensus, commit the necessary number of troops and resources, and account for the cultural difference of the Middle East. My criticism of Woodward is that many of his interviews and inside quotes are wholly unfiltered.

The Surge is portrayed as working in the sense of putting in the presence necessary to calm some of the unrest. At the level of strategy, no victory is in sight until a stable indigenous government can be built. Some of the internal conversations relayed to Woodward seem so one-sided that they could not be accurate (the recounting the besting of Rumsfeld struck me as laughable).

Could not get past the first 100 or so pages. The important news about the covert assassination plan can be gleaned from the newspapers' book reviews. Just because you have the access as a journalist doesn't mean you should write a book. This will definitely only have value for historians. Not worth buying. Should have known it, because "The Plan" was already a bore.

Intense and suspenseful, Woodward pulls back the curtain to expose the dirty, nasty reality of Bush administration politics.Its strength lies in Woodward's tenacity as an interviewer, and his nearly unrestricted access to the insiders in Washington. The book is at its best when unraveling the inner workings of governmental insiders. Unfortunately, the information revealed about our government is not easy to stomach.Great Book.

I had ordered before for the same grandson so his address, etc. My 22 year old Grandson wanted this book for his birthday and he told me to go to Amazon. Com for it -- I followed his directions and was very pleased amd impressed with the service that I received. were all filled in. He received the book as promised and told me that he enjoyed it.