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Title: KARL ROVE: "This is like being at a Nazi rally."
Source:
London Times
URL Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-489468,00.html
Published: Nov 23, 2002
Author: By Tim Reid
Post Date: 2006-08-22 19:06:52 by Uncle Bill
Keywords: Hitler, Willing, Executioners
Views: 132
Comments: 7
London Times The head of the CIA was furious that he had never pushed Bill Clinton or George Bush for the authority to assassinate Osama bin Laden. And five days after September 11, the US Government’s War Cabinet was singing Old Man River while the President struggled with a giant jigsaw puzzle. Washington is abuzz with the latest book by Bob Woodward, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist renowned for his role in uncovering the Watergate scandal, which records in extraordinary detail the account of President Bush and his advisers as they struggled to engage an Afghan enemy in a new kind of war. But in Bush At War, Woodward, a master at instant-history narratives of Washington decision-making, has astounded even his greatest admirers by tempting nearly every key player in the War Cabinet to give his side of the story. Even Mr Bush agreed to four hours of on-the-record interviews, and the author gained access to 15,000 words of National Security Council minutes. Some come out of the account better than others. Mr Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, during often rambling and unfocused War Cabinet meetings, comes across as irascible and unhappy that the early stages of the war were dominated by the CIA, with the Pentagon stumbling behind. “There was nothing on the shelf (an Afghanistan war plan) that could be pulled down to provide at least an outline,” Mr Woodward writes. At one point when the Afghan campaign seemed bogged down, Mr Rumsfeld boiled over during a meeting at the White House. “This is the CIA’s strategy . . . you guys are in charge . . . we’re just following you in,” he shouts. The outburst also reflected that the war marked the first time in US history that the CIA and US Army were fighting a campaign side by side. After the meeting, Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush’s National Security Adviser, pulled Mr Rumsfeld aside and said: “Don, this is now a military operation and you really have to be in charge.” Ms Rice, who Mr Bush says is “constantly mother-henning me”, emerges as a pivotal figure, an honest broker of the minutely detailed frictions between Colin Powell, the dovish Secretary of State, and the hawkish Mr Rumsfeld and Mr Cheney, the Vice-President. Mr Woodward also reveals that General Powell refused to run for the presidency in 2000 because his wife, Alma, said she would leave him if he did so. Some detail is touching. Three days after September 11, Ms Rice returned to her flat in Watergate (she had been sleeping in the White House bunker for safety). She switched on a television for the first time since the hijackings and watched as the Star-Spangled Banner was being played outside Buckingham Palace. She broke down and wept. In planning the Afghan war, General Powell had advised the Cabinet to “stay away from CNN”. Instantaneous battlefield coverage could create unnecessary pressure. But the TV network had its uses. On November 9, last year, reports came into the White House that Kabul had fallen. “What does the National Security Adviser do in such a situation? She turned to CNN, which confirmed the reports,” Mr Woodward writes. Only then did Ms Rice talk to the President. Mr Bush comes across as a strong and decisive leader. Three weeks into the Afghan campaign the US press was raising the spectre of “another Vietnam”. There were grave doubts inside the War Cabinet that they were losing the war. Ms Rice told the President that his team was wobbling. Mr Bush convened the team the next day. “We need to be patient. We’ve got a good plan. Be steady. Don’t let the press panic us. Be confident and patient. It’s all going to work.” “Rice believed it was one of the most important moments in the war,” Mr Woodward writes. Mr Bush also refused to leave the White House despite daily intelligence briefings pointing to an imminent terrorist strike on the building. “Those bastards are going to find me exactly here,” he said. “And if they get me, they are going to get me right here.” One of the book’s most fascinating insights was the constraining legacy on modern US war plans by the American hostage crises in Iran and Lebanon that beset the Carter and Reagan Administrations. No bombing could start in Afghanistan until airborne combat search-and-rescue teams were in place to rescue any downed pilots. That meant getting the acquiescence of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to the north of Afghanistan, which initially refused to give permission for the use of their air bases. That delayed the first airstrikes by at least two weeks. Mr Bush did not just face pressure in Afghanistan. On October 30, last year, he was about to throw the ceremonial first pitch at a World Series baseball game before 15,000 fans in the New York Yankees stadium. He told the Yankees shortstop that he planned to pitch from the base of the pitcher’s mound, rather than on top of it from where the professionals throw, because it would be a shorter and easier distance. He was told that if he threw from the base of the mound, he would be booed. “Do you think they would really boo me, a wartime President?” Mr Bush asked. “Yeah, this is New York.” The President said that he would throw from the top of the mound. “And don’t forget, Mr President, if you bounce it, they’ll boo you.” He threw a perfect pitch and the stadium erupted. “Watching from owner George Steinbrenner’s box, Karl Rove (Mr Bush’s political strategist) thought: ‘This is like being at a Nazi rally’.” Mr Woodward also gives details of the first CIA team, codenamed Jawbreaker, that was sent into Afghanistan. “Gary”, the chief agent, arrived in a helicopter with nearly £2 million in cash “between his legs in a large strapped metal suitcase”. The CIA bought off more Taleban than it killed, with $70 million in bribes, a figure Mr Bush declared a bargain. But the CIA had it tough: when targeting US bombing strikes they had to use old Russian maps, translating the co-ordinates to English maps with pencils and rulers. The road from Watergate Bob Woodward became one of America’s most celebrated journalists after breaking the Watergate scandal with his colleague Carl Bernstein the ultimately destroyed the presidency of Richard Nixon. The two Washington Post reporters later described the affair, which brought down Richard Nixon, in the 1974 book All the President’s Men. In 1976 it was made into a film, in which Woodward was played by Robert Redford. He has become one of the most influential journalists of his generation and a man to whom the powerful now open their doors. Assistant managing editor at The Washington Post, Woodward has authored or co-authored eight top non-fiction bestsellers, including books on the Clinton presidency, US leadership during the Gulf War, the Hollywood drug culture, the Supreme Court, and the Federal Reserve. 
The inside story of US war cabinet at war
By Tim Reid
November 23, 2002 
Watergate writer Bob Woodward gained unrivalled access behind the scenes at the White House. DONALD RUMSFELD kept asking questions to hide the fact that a war plan for Afghanistan did not exist. Dick Cheney was obsessed with the threat of a chemical-biological attack.
Relax honey, the Federal Reserve needs this
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#6. To: Uncle Bill (#0)
What an incentive!
#7. To: robin (#6)
I suspect with the poppy harvest at record highs, the "Russian" mafia wishes their goy proxy to declare victory and just go away (yeah, you'll get your cut)...or a 'carpet of Stingers and MANPODs' will erupt...eliminating our best of our special forces...Jerusalem or Bust.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestThe CIA bought off more Taleban than it killed, with $70 million in bribes, a figure Mr Bush declared a bargain.
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