by Bob Woodward
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| List Price: | $14.00 |
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| Lowest New Price: | $12.27 |
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Product Description
Bob Woodward's book on President Bush and the Iraq war will be the definitive account of the turning point in history as Bush, his war council and allies launched a pre-emptive attack, toppling Saddam Hussein and taking over the country. From in-depth interviews with key players and notes from national security meetings, Woodward provides a thoroughly original, authoritative narrative of the behind-the-scenes manoeuvring, examining the causes and consequences of the most controversial war since Vietnam. What emerges is an astonishingly intimate portrait of Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, the generals, the CIA and key foreign leaders ranging from Tony Blair to Vladimir Putin. This is the how and why of decision-making - the secret meetings, secure phone calls, strategies, dilemmas and raw emotions of war as it is rarely seen in contemporary history.
Amazon.com Review
The 2003 American invasion of Iraq was contentious, not just in the arena of global public opinion, but within the tight-lipped world of the George W. Bush White House. As Bob Woodward reveals in Plan of Attack, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were part of a group leading the charge to war while Secretary of State Colin Powell, General Tommy Franks, and others actively questioned the plan to invade a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks while war in Afghanistan was still being waged. Woodward gained extensive access to dozens of key figures and enjoyed hours of direct contact with the President himself (more time, seemingly, than former Bush administration officials Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill claim to have had). As a result, he's able to cite the kind of gossip you won't find in a White House press release: Franks calls Pentagon official Douglas Feith "the f*cking stupidest guy on the face of the earth," Powell shares his alarm over how the cautious Cheney of the first Bush administration had transformed into a zealot, and Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar seems to enjoy significantly more entrée and influence than most anyone would have thought. Bush is shown as a man intent on toppling Saddam Hussein in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and never really wavering in his decision despite offering hints that non-military solutions could be achieved. Light is also shed on CIA director George Tenet, who insists that the evidence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction was "a slam dunk" only to later admit that his intelligence was flawed when months of post-war searches turned up nothing. But the book's most interesting character is Powell. A former soldier himself, who finds himself increasingly at odds with the agenda of the administration, Powell rejects evidence on WMDs that he sees as spurious but ultimately endorses the invasion effort, apparently out of duty. Upon its publication, the Bush administration roundly denied many of the accounts in the book that demonstrated conflict within their circles, poor judgment, or lousy planning, but the Bush/Cheney reelection campaign nonetheless listed Plan of Attack as recommended reading. And it is. It shows alarming problems in the way the war was conceived and planned, but it also demonstrates the tremendous conviction and dedication of the people who decided to carry it out. --John Moe
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Plan of Attack Was Very Informative, 2008-11-01
This book was very informative without throwing in personal bias but just stating the facts. It reveals plenty of new material.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Plan Of Attack, 2008-10-08
Great book defining the President's decision to go to war, and the inept stooges running our country.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Superficial and fawning, 2008-10-05
Well, this is a classic example of why histories should not be written within a few short months of the event. Woodward fawns over President Bush, accepting without question that Bush had nothing to do with orchestrating the grand deception of the American public that led to war. His questions of the president, during and after, are softballs that are infuriating to read as the Bush innocently claims he thought he was just getting the finest intelligence that ever was, and blaming everything on George Tenet for his alleged "Slam-Dunk" statement. Gosh, golly, I really believed ol' George, yuh know--in fact, that's all I needed. What, me worry?
At the least, some of the sinister side of Dick Cheney shows through. If Secretary of State Colin Powell did in fact have such misgivings about the war, however, as stated in the book (and yet stayed on out of political loyalty and sent thousands to their deaths), I find it even harder to believe that G. W. Bush was the innocent bystander that Woodward paints him to be.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Plan of Attack, by Bob Woodward, 2008-03-15
We returned this book because you sent it to us minus the first twenty or so pages. We did not read this book.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Deju vu all over again, 2007-12-09
I just reread _Plan of Attack_, and was struck by how much light it sheds on the currently unfolding drama swirling around Iran.
To the extent that President Bush still appears to believe that it is his sacred duty to strike pre-emptively at evil wherever he finds it, then the current "coercive diplomacy" being aimed at Iran--the current exemplar of his "axis of evil"--seems likely to end in war, just as it did in Iraq.
The parallels between the developments that Woodward reports on in the run-up to the war in Iraq, and what we are seeing with respect to Iran, are eerie--the distortion and exaggeration of intelligence to justify the war, the simultaneous building up of forces in the region, and the willingness to shift justifications as needed, jump from the page.
At this moment, December of 2007, when we are learning that our own intelligence does not support the existence of a nuclear threat from Iran, we're also seeing the neocon establishment attack the messengers, and re-focus on Iran's intent rather than capability. Unless Bush and those around him have experienced a real change of heart, the White House depicted by Woodward can be expected to redouble its efforts to bring about regime change in Iran, rather than admit any errors and change course.
I strongly recommend giving _Plan of Attack_ a read or re-read right now, certainly for what it says about how and why we got into Iraq, but even more for what it may presage about Iran.
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