An Intimate Look at a Stumbling White House: State of Denial by Bob Woodward
An Intimate Look at a Stumbling White House
State of Denial: Bush at War part III
by Bob Woodward
Simon and Schuster, 2006
http://www.simonsays.com
by Henry Edward Hardy
State of Denial is Washington Post Assistant Editor Bob Woodward’s third book on the presidential administration of George W. Bush. Like Bush at War (2002) and Plan of Attack (2004), the book purports to be an inside look into the intimate details of executive policy making at the White House. State of Denial uses the same omniscient viewpoint as in the previous books, though Woodward does insert himself into the story this time in order to make a few parenthetical derogatory comments pertaining to the recently retired secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld.
Woodward graduated from Yale in 1965, a few years before Bush. Until 1970 he served on the staff of Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, and sometimes acted as a courier to the White House.Woodward first achieved national prominence in the early 1970’s for his coverage of the Watergate break-in. That scandal led to the resignation of Richard M. Nixon. Woodward and fellow Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein played a significant role in uncovering and reporting on the Watergate conspiracy.
Although it includes some unlikely-sounding quotes and aphorisms, even haiku, State of Denial is clearly written, well-paced and full of pithy and memorable quotes. The book includes this quote from a US Intelligence Colonel early in the Iraq occupation regarding the lack of sufficient occupation troops:
Rumsfeld is a dick
Won’t flow the forces we need
We will be too light
Woodward writes that during a Cabinet meeting on August 27, 2001, the Saudi ambassador (and Bush family friend) Prince Bandar confronted Bush and cabinet members about growing tension in the Middle East. Woodward writes that Colin Powell, then the Secretary of State, confronted Bandar after and demanded, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? You’re putting the fear of God into everybody here. You scared the shit out of everybody.”Bandar replied, “I don’t give a damn what you feel. We are scared ourselves.”
Woodward’s tale of the tirade by Bandar and the alarmed response by Powell, two weeks before the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, makes the Saudi origins of 14 of the 19 alleged 9/11 hijackers all the more interesting.
This is only one of many blockbusters Woodward apparently withheld from publication by the Washington Post. Woodward never seems to let the interests of the Post or the United States get in the way of his own journalistic coups. He has been criticized for allowing New York Times reporter Judy Miller go to jail for contempt of court and Vice President Dick Cheney’s aide “Scooter” Libby to be charged with leaking the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. All along Woodward knew that the information had been previously revealed to him by Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
In a 1996 article in the New York Review of Books, Joan Didion accused Woodward of “curious passivity” in his uncritical retelling of the stories of each of his protagonists. In a wide-ranging attack on his work, methods, and credibility, she accused him of creating “political pornography”. But whereas the previous two books show Bush as a confident and decisive commander, the current work depicts him as vacillating, detached and ill-informed from the outset of his presidency. One would like to see some explanation from Woodward for his extraordinary change of perspective. One almost feels sorry for the thoroughly unlikable Rumsfeld as he is savaged by Woodward’s portrayal of him as a manipulative, vain, overbearing tyrant. Although he evidently granted Woodward several in-depth interviews, Rumsfeld does not come in for the kid-gloves treatment proffered to most of his other apparent sources. So now Bob Woodward has the scalp of Rumsfeld to add to that of Nixon.
This is a fun book, a weighty book, and a political tour-de-force. But it isn’t journalism. Instead it lies somewhere between an historical novel such as Burr by Gore Vidal, and books such as Rise of the Vulcans by James Mann or Imperial Hubris by Michael Scheuer. State of Denial has had great influence among the chattering classes in Washington and I believe influenced the recent congressional elections and led to the downfall of Rumsfeld. This book is highly recommended.
State of Denial (Metacritic)
State of Denial (wikipedia)
The Deferential Spirit (Joan Didion in the New York Review of Books )
A version of this article appeared previously in Current Magazine and on Electric Current
Copyright © 2006, 2007 Henry Edward Hardy
“Control Room” Delivers Some Bitterly Ironic Retrospection
Control Room
Delivers Some Bitterly Ironic Retrospection
by Henry Edward Hardy
If 2004 was The Year of the Documentary, then Control Room, Jehane Noujaim’s film on the independent Arab News channel, Al-Jazeera, ranks among the best. Control Room tells the story of the network and the early days of the Iraq War through the eyes of Jazeera reporter Hassan Ibrahim, senior producer Samir Khader and U.S. spokesperson Lieutenant Josh Rushing.
Khader makes penetrating points about the climate of fear perpetuated inside the U.S. by the Administration, and both he and Ibrahim express substantial (and warranted) skepticism about Iraq’s mythical weapons of mass destruction.
“Pulverized. Dead bodies en masse — and why? We get these pictures and we show them. Unfortunately we get grief from the Americans who say we are inciting rebellion, instigating anti-American sentiments. They cannot have their cake and eat it,” says Ibrahim.
Lt. Rushing is a surprisingly appealing figure in the film, genuinely troubled by many of the inconsistencies between the war as he is told to present it and the feedback and questions presented by foreign press such as Jazeera.
The film shows powerfully how both Al-Jazeera and western coverage are manipulated by reporters, producers, governments and public opinion. We see how the iconic footage of the statue of Saddam being toppled was the result of a U.S. “Psyops” (psychological operations) battalion’s efforts and not a spontaneous uprising of the Iraqi people.
We see civilian casualties, simple homes of simple people. A woman stands in front of a house with its front blown off and shouts, “Welcome to my house, Mr. Bush. Look at this! Don’t you have any humanity? How can you accept a little girl crying for her mom and dad?”
We then cut to U.S. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, explaining, “What they do is when a bomb goes down, they grab some children, and some women, and pretend that the bomb hit the women and the children,” Rumsfeld continues with a death’s-head, rictus-like grin. “To the extent that people lie, ultimately they are caught lying. They lose their credibility. And one would think that that wouldn’t take long dealing with people like this.”
Viewing the film now is informed by subsequent revelations. One cannot help a bitter smile at the irony and self-serving hypocrisy of Bush when he says he expects Iraq to treat U.S. captives humanely and in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, as he asserts, the U.S. treats its captives.
Control Room is available on DVD and VHS and for rental from local video stores.
A version of this article was previously published in Current Magazine and on Electric Current, http://www.eCurrent.com .
Control Room (IMDB)
Control Room (Rotten Tomatoes)
Control Room (wikipedia)
Copyright © 2005, 2006, 2007 Henry Edward Hardy
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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Scanlyze is an online magazine of essays, commentary, satire, and analysis. Were we half as clever, for inspiration we would take Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Swift, Montaigne, or Seneca.
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