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Inside view of the march to war
Plan of Attack
By Bob Woodward
Published by Simon & Schuster, 2004, £18-99
Reviewed by
Per Olsson
PLAN OF ATTACK is a well-documented and informative account
of the Bush administration’s march to war against Iraq. It is an inside story –
like a real West Wing – with Woodward having access to sources and information
that other authors and journalists only dream of. Based on interviews with more
than 75 key players in Washington DC, including President Bush on record, notes
and minutes of meetings, it starts where Woodward’s previous book, Bush at War,
ends.
Bush at War told the behind-the-scenes story after the 9/11
terror attacks on the US. Already in Bush at War part of the Bush junta insists
that Iraq should be the prime target in the ‘war against terrorism’. In
particular the secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, and his deputy, Paul
Wolfowitz, were eager to use September 11 as an excuse for going after Saddam.
But the generals and the secretary of state, Colin Powell, were against. They
argued that the time was not ripe, either politically or militarily. In late
September 2001 Powell, according to Woodward in Bush at War, warned Bush against
going to war on Iraq: "Our coalition partners will go away if you hit Iraq...
let’s get Afghanistan now. If we do that, we will have increased our ability to
go after Iraq – if we can prove Iraq had a role" (p94).
In the final days of the war against Afghanistan, however,
Bush asked Rumsfeld for a private meeting, raising the question: "How do you
feel about the war plan for Iraq?" The date was 21 November 2001 and this is
where Plan of Attack begins. Bush’s question to Rumsfeld was the go ahead. "The
processes of war planning", Woodward remarks, "become policy by their own
momentum, especially with the intimate involvement of both the secretary of
defence and the president" (p3). General Tommy Franks was given the task of
drawing up the war plan, which fitted the Bush administration’s military
doctrine – a modern blitzkrieg aiming to ‘shock and awe’.
Money is not a problem for the warmongers in Washington,
their real problem was how to gain public support in the US and worldwide for
war. Still there is nothing to prove that Iraq had a role in September 11. But
this did not stop the hawks: "Lack of evidence did not mean something did not
exist", as Rumsfeld said.
A majority of the US population thought Iraq was involved in
9/11 and Bush wanted to make sure that this opinion did not change. It was
stated as fact that Saddam was sitting on a stockpile of weapons of mass
destruction (WMDs) and it was only a question of time before he started to use
them. Vice-president, Dick Cheney, issued his own National Intelligence Estimate
in August 2002 saying "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass
destruction [and] there is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our
friends, our allies and against us" (p164). Cheney and other hawks, including
the president, also argued that there was a convergence between terrorism and
WMDs. CIA boss, George Tenet, who recently lost his job, reassured Bush twice
that the existence of Iraq’s WMDs was a "slam dunk case". That Iraq had WMDs
became an official, politically-motivated lie put forward not only by Bush but
also, for example, by the British government. The official lie was necessary in
order to turn the war against Iraq into the next chapter in the ‘war against
terrorism’.
The Democrats had no problems in repeating the lies and
spinned intelligence presented by the Bush junta. They were as hawkish as the
White House. Senator John F Kerry, now the Democrats’ presidential candidate,
told the Senate in October 2002 that he supported Bush’s war resolution because
Saddam "has a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands and
this is a grave threat to our security" (p203). The Democrats gave Bush a blank
cheque.
Bush’s core argument was that the US could not wait "for the
final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud"
(p202). The truth, no doubt, was the first victim in the war against Iraq.
Woodward’s book makes this clear. Not only the hawks but also those described as
doves within the administration – the more cautious and multilateral wing led by
Powell and his deputy, Richard L Armitage – never really questioned that Iraq
had WMDs. It was Powell, after all, who went to the UN to present the case in
public and, according to Woodward, was very flattered to get the job. At the UN
on 5 February 2003, Powell said and did exactly the same as the others by
converting lies, rumours and uncertainty into fact. He stated: "Ambition and
hatred are enough to bring Iraq together with al Qaeda", and "We know that
Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction" (p311).
Woodward is with Powell and Armitage, so much that his book
could easily have been subtitled, In Defence of the State Department. The
secretary of state, writes Woodward, warned Bush on several occasion that the
war and occupation could go deadly wrong. The occupation of Iraq would "suck the
oxygen of everything" by destabilising the Middle East, dramatically affecting
the supply and price of oil, and would divert attention from everything else,
including the war on terrorism. Powell is said to have asked himself: "What of
an image of an American general running an Arab country, a General MacArthur in
Baghdad?" (p150).
Woodward describes Powell, as "the reluctant warrior" who
was urging for restraint, but never says, ‘Don’t do it’. Powell was not prepared
to resign, despite all his doubts, and his feeling that he was "being frozen out
by the White House" (p79). But why not? Woodward gives the predictable, not very
convincing, answer that Powell was a loyal soldier: "He had to play to the boss"
(p151).
Powell was less hawkish and seemed to be more aware of the
political risks involved, but even his wing of the ruling strata backed the
baseline policy of pursuing regime change in Iraq, even if that meant a
full-scale war. "I’m with you, Mr President", was Powell’s comment when Bush
informed him about his decision to go to war against Iraq (p271). What Powell
then says in private and afterwards is of less importance.
In August-September 2002, however, the State Department
convinced Bush to explore the diplomatic road and go to the UN. Woodward claims
that Powell was hoping that the "internationalisation of the problem" could open
up a road to regime change in Iraq without a war. Or that it could, at least,
provide an "international cover" (Powell’s term) for war. The hawks and
neo-conservatives simply regarded the diplomatic road as a waste of time, which
could only give Saddam a chance to manoeuvre.
As time went on, the neo-conservatives and Pentagon
officials became increasingly angry with the UN weapons inspectors who had not
found any WMDs. The Bush junta spied on the inspectors. Their leader, Hans Blix,
was accused of being a liar.
The growing opposition against the war has opened up
historic divisions within the administration, the Republican Party and the US
ruling class. Less than one year after 9/11, US imperialism was confronted with
the first symptoms of a crisis. August 2002 was "a miserable month", according
to Bush. The government’s unilateral approach was criticised in public by the
Republican old guard and the anti-war movement started to become a factor.
Particularly the criticism made by Brent Scowcroft, Bush Snr’s national security
advisor, seemed to hit the Oval office. Scowcroft argued that an attack on Iraq
could turn the Middle East into a "cauldron and thus destroy the war on
terrorism" (p149), his views widely regarded as representing those of the older
Bush. Scowcroft also recommended that Bush should try to get the UN weapons
inspectors back.
The so-called diplomatic road was seen as a way to defuse
the situation, but the basic line remained – war is inevitable. This unilateral
approach and the arrogance of the Bush junta caused the most serious rift within
the imperialist camp in the post-Stalinist era.
The march to war was ridden by crises and sometimes even
panic. The generals insisted that the war had to start before March, partly due
to weather conditions. There was a general feeling within the Bush
administration that time was not on their side. The countdown to war had already
been slowed down because of the difficulties of winning international support.
Woodward writes that 15 February had been set as a potential start for the war,
"if the inspections had gone according to the plan and exposed Saddam" (p319).
But things had not gone "according to the plan".
In reality, 15 February 2003 was indeed a historic day.
Thirty million people took to the streets globally to protest against the war.
The anti-war mood was a factor in forcing governments to take a stand against
the US’s unilateralism and to oppose its war. Woodward, however, only mentions
the anti-war movement in passing. He writes that, after 15 February, "Bush’s
chief allies were getting serious heat at home". He does not explain why.
Woodward hardly looks beyond Washington DC, and sometimes the broader picture
goes missing. Conflicts and splits at the top never occur in a vacuum. After 15
February, Bush ordered Rumsfeld and the military to "slow down your troop
movements... we’re accelerating too fast relative to where we need to be because
of the diplomatic side" (p 319).
The main reason behind this step was the crisis facing New
Labour and Blair. Bush desperately needed Britain in his war coalition. In order
to win the vote for war in the British parliament, Bush agreed to look for a new
UN resolution and to present a ‘road map’ for peace in the Middle East. "Bush
had never paid such attention to a debate or vote in a foreign legislature as
the one going on that day [18 March] in the British parliament" (p375).
Blair, however, managed to win the vote, thanks to the full
support of the Tories and two-thirds of New Labour MPs, and the day after there
was a jubilant mood in Washington. US special operation forces entered Iraq. The
next day was the first full day of the war.
That the war started on 20 March was partly because the US
war coalition got information as to where Saddam and his sons were supposed to
be staying. Missiles and bombs hit the Dora Farm complex outside Baghdad
killing, not Saddam and his sons however, but the US informer.
Woodward devotes a big part of his book to the CIA’s covert
operations in Iraq before the war. It was not like in Afghanistan where the CIA
bought the warlords and re-armed them. Iraq was different. Only the Kurdish
warlords in the north – areas effectively autonomous from the regime in Baghdad
– could provide any kind of forces on the ground. In the rest of the country,
the CIA had to find informers, or ‘rock-stars’ as they were to be called!
The lack of ‘boots on the ground’ meant that the CIA and the
Bush administration promoted and worked closely with Iraqi exiles, who
represented no one apart from themselves, but who sung to Washington’s tune. In
Iraq the CIA chose to operate mainly in areas controlled by the Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Jalal Talabani. "The other Kurdish group, the
Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), controlled the flow of trucks from Saddam’s
Iraq into Turkey and was making a lot of money. The KDP was not altogether eager
for regime change", writes Woodward (p141).
Tens of millions of dollars in $100 bills were paid out to
anyone prepared to become an informer. At one stage, $35 million in cash was
smuggled into Iraq, nearly one ton of $100 bills. It went so far that Talabani
even complained to a CIA official (‘Tim’) that "everything in Sulaymaniyah costs
$100. The $100 bills have caused extreme inflation. It seemed even a cup of
coffee was going for $100 because no one could make small change" (p303). The
informers did not just get rich, they were also offered "a seat at the table
when the new, post-Saddam government is formed" (p 212).
Also, the so-called Iraqi opposition in exile was given
millions of dollars and promised a seat at the table. In return, Ahmed Chalabi
and Co, assured Bush that his troops would be greeted as liberators, which
partly explains why the administration’s "assumption was that Iraqis would join
in if it looked like the US was coming" (p81). This was just wishful thinking.
But the fact that the war was fought on false political assumptions and lies
rapidly turned the overwhelming military victory into a Pyrrhic victory.
The book’s epilogue was written after the war. Bush, Powell,
Rumsfeld and the others interviewed are on the defensive, writes Woodward: "The
failure to find WMDs and the continuing violence and instability inside Iraq –
the fact that the war was not really over – has given a pause even to true
believers". And after the battles of al-Falluja, the armed resistance by Shia
Muslims and the prison scandals in Abu Ghraib, the situation has gone from bad
to worse.
On 19 March 2003, Bush said to Blair that "opinion has
changed". Yes, it has, but not exactly in the way Bush meant. The latest Pew
report on global attitudes, A Year After Iraq War, shows that huge majorities –
80% in Germany alone – see the US as "less trustworthy" after Iraq. The report
concludes: "A year after the war in Iraq, discontent with America and its
policies has intensified rather than diminished... the war in Iraq has
undermined America’s credibility abroad" (Pew Research Center, 16 March 2004,
www.people-press.org).
In setting the Plan of Attack in motion US imperialism has
become overstretched and is heading for a crisis, which in one way or another
will almost certainly be featured in Woodward’s next book.
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