Fighting Papa’s Battle

These sources begin with Bush himself, and reach across the gamut of the Bush Administration. Hearing that Woodward was writing such an account, many approached him, rather than vice-versa. The result is a fly-on the-wall account, which will have you turning the pages as only Woodward’s felicitous prose can.

But despite all of Woodward’s abilities, this is a fatally flawed book. For one, his perspective is, as he had pointed out in an earlier book, The Choice, “not that of history”. For another, he is disinclined to probe deeply, examine the evidence proffered, or render judgment critically. His sources know that he will be deferential, and uncomfortable questions will not be broached. If he had taken this route, it is extremely likely that his sources would have dried up faster than the Ganges in a drought.

Woodward’s reluctance at times becomes absurd. In The Commanders, he had written about President George H. Bush’s drive against Iraq after it invaded Kuwait. The same dramatis personae reappear — Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice — and hovering over them all, like the ghost of a war past, George H. himself. Unfinished business? Is 1991 haunting 2001? Are old thought patterns resurfacing? Have the lessons of forming an anti-Iraq coalition been learned? Not a squeak out of Woodward.

And what of the Man of the War himself? He was, clearly, running an administration that was at odds with itself. The principal decision-makers disagreed between themselves — encapsulated in a stunning photograph showing Powell and Rumsfeld almost at each other’s throats, as a stunned Rice watches. If what Woodward portrays is anything to go by, Bush is his own man. He coolly evaluates the pros and cons of the contending views of Powell and Rumsfeld — and makes his own decisions.

But what is worrying is that all these decisions are made in a hermetically sealed environment. Or is that a misunderstanding on our part, a result of Woodward’s focusing on the central decision-makers, as if the rest of the world does not exist, with even Tony Blair appearing as a mere caricature. What is one to make of Bush’s strange statement to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi: “In this new war, cutting off funds is just as important as dropping a bomb. Aid to Pakistan is just as important as landing troops.” Huh?

Despite these flaws, is there any point in reading this book? Yes, there is. We get a chance to see the near-dysfunctional manner in which decisions of global consequence are made. We get a sense of the constant pressure under which political and military leaders function. We also see how differing personalities and differing perspectives are reconciled. We have stunning examples of the puerile and muddled thinking that permeates the political class.