| What strikes the Indian reader is the amazing penetration of the government at its very apex which both authors are able to accomplish, thereby offering detailed accounts of cabinet-level meetings and confidential documents""in a manner that is unimaginable in India. Clearly, both are skilled practitioners of their craft, have access to key sources, and are able therefore to reconstruct events and conversations that would in the ordinary course remain closed to the outside world. The reader therefore gains almost a first-hand understanding of the US political system and of presidential style""and both books are valuable for that alone. |
| Robert Blackwill, who was for a while the pointman for Iraq when he returned to Washington after being ambassador in New Delhi, recounted on one of his recent India visits how Woodward walked into his office with copies of key memos that Blackwill thought only the US president and national security adviser had, and began the interview by recounting what Blackwill had said by way of opening remarks at a meeting. |
| So the Bush White House may once have been considered immune to press leaks, but clearly not when the crap hits the fan and everyone wants to point fingers at the next guy. It was one of the earlier Woodward books that quoted Tenet as saying in a meeting with Bush that finding the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq would be a 'slam dunk'. By Suskind's account, Tenet never said that and the story was put out in order to pin responsibility on Tenet for what eventually happened. But Woodward in this latest account comes right back to assert that he did say the words. Suskind's account has Tenet painting Condoleezza Rice in pretty dark colours when it comes to insider politics, and in effect says that she shafted him in order to save her own skin. |
| Suskind also focuses on the vice-president, Dick Cheney, whose guiding principle gave him the book's title: if there was even a 1 per cent chance of someone attacking the US, that remote possibility must be treated as a certainty. What kind of roads does a country take when it adopts that approach""to Abu Ghraib, dumping the Geneva conventions, restricting the scope of civil liberties, assuming executive powers that the authors of the country's constitution may not have intended...? |
| Woodward has rightly been criticised for the sharp swing in tone from his earlier books on the Bush presidency. Though written from his usual fly-on-the-wall perspective, and therefore making no ostensible value judgments, Woodward makes it clear from the start of this book that his target is Rumsfeld. The former defence secretary comes across as the ultimate power-grabber and role-enhancer, crusty and aggressive, never doubting his own work and ever willing to maul anyone who comes in his way. That is not the picture of Rumsfeld that Woodward painted earlier, but it is also true that Rumsfeld in his role as the bad guy comes across as endlessly fascinating. The other bad guy in Woodward's account is Jay Bremer for foolish decisions when made potentate of Iraq, decisions taken with the thoughtlessness that can only come from the knowledge that you will be immune from the consequences. |
| But the questions must in the end come back to President Bush. Why did he consistently back Rumsfeld against, say, Colin Powell? Why was he so impervious to the reality that things were going badly wrong? Neither author has clear answers, but both show how a hyper-power is at the end of the day as vulnerable to human and organisational failings as anyone else. |
| STATE OF DENIAL Bush at War, Part III |
| Bob Woodward Simon & Schuster Price: $30; Pages: 558 |
| THE ONE PERCENT DOCTRINE Deep Inside America's Pursuit of its Enemies since 9/11 |
| Ron Suskind Simon & Schuster Price: $27; Pages: 367 |
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