Bush Was the Decider
From: Bob Woodward
To: Oliver Stone, Ron Suskind, and Jacob WeisbergPosted Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2008, at 10:33 AM ETThis week, Slate is featuring a conversation about George Bush's presidency, prompted by Oliver Stone's film W. Participants are Oliver Stone; Bob Woodward, author of The War Within; Ron Suskind, author of The Way of the World; and Jacob Weisberg, author of The Bush Tragedy.
Oliver, Ron, and Jacob,
Ron, I'm struck that you feel we don't have a general understanding of the cause of the Iraq war. You write, "The reasons we invaded Iraq remain largely shrouded in classified files, lost conversations, carefully guarded secrets." While significant new information may one day come out, I strongly disagree. I believe there is already an expansive record in the Bush library, and the work that has been done on the Iraq war answers this question.
The foremost cause, in Bush's mind, was 9/11. It set an atmosphere of "We are in peril, we need to do something." Bush believed Iraq was a threat. The second was, I believe, his conviction that Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction. Recall that the House and Senate voted on a resolution to give the president support and authority to use the U.S. military in Iraq as he deemed "appropriate and necessary." The atmosphere at the time was very much "We are threatened, there is trouble. Saddam Hussein is a threat." Too many officials and people believed this. Third, the war plan that was presented to President Bush in a dozen or more briefings, and subsequently outlined in several books, shows that it was thought the invasion would be comparatively easy and that it got easier as the war plan was refined. Fourth, there was an undeniable momentum to war at the time. Fifth, in Oliver's movie and in many of the books, the portrait of Bush is that of "the Impatient Man." When some intelligence suggested that the chief U.N. weapons inspector, Hans Blix, was not being fully forthcoming, Bush ordered war.
The military was ready, and the invasion looked like it was going to be easy. Congress and the public supported it. And the press, very much including myself, was not inquisitive enough to dig deeper into the allegations of weapons of mass destruction.
While there certainly may be some substantial revelations yet to come, the idea that this is basically unanswerable, I think, is wrong. In Plan of Attack, I quote from a top-secret memo of Aug. 14, 2002, called "Iraq: Goals, Objectives and Strategy." One of its stated purposes was to "minimize disruption in international oil markets." Oil was put on the table as one of the reasons for war, and I think this adds to the background noise. Ron, you say of Bush, "He knew more than he's letting on." I think there's truth to that, but I also believe he let on quite a bit. To those of us who dug in the vineyards of the Bush administration, the basic causes of the war in Iraq are there.
You also write that Bush "made choices of his own free will." I think that's exactly right. He was heavily influenced by Cheney and a number of others, but the decisions were his. As he said to me, "I believe we have a duty to free people," to liberate people. Many have said this is something that was concocted after weapons of mass destruction failed to surface. But I watched him jump in his chair when he said it, and I think it is a deep and genuine conviction on his part. Certainly many would disagree with it, but I think this conviction was one of his primary drivers. I doubt very much that there was some mysterious, Oedipal force at work or that there is a secret reason that remains carefully guarded. The drivers in all of this are not really shrouded.
My caveat, obviously, is you don't know what you don't know.
Jacob, you make note of the scene in W. where Bush and his advisers debate whether to go to war. In it, the Colin Powell character makes his case against the invasion. The problem is, as best I can tell, no such meeting ever took place. The president never called the National Security Council and the top advisers together to have a real knock-down, drag-out, come-to-Jesus meeting. It gives Powell more credit than he deserves. This is the broad meeting that Bush should have had to hash it out among his advisers. Powell's plea to the president in August 2002, which he recently affirmed, was that the administration needed to look at the consequences of war, but he never argued openly to the president that he should not invade Iraq.
You also make the point that Cheney's comments in this mythical gathering of Bush's war Cabinet did not occur. The idea of "empire," which certainly may have resided in the minds of some, including Cheney, was to my knowledge never really put on the table. The idea that the real issue was Iran, again, may have been in their minds, but there is no record of this discussion at that time. Additionally, I think you have a good point about the pinning of the Willie Horton ad from the 1988 campaign on George W. Bush. I've seen no evidence that this was the case.
At the same time, there is an overall sense or feel in the movie that gets a number of things correct. Bush's notorious casualness and inattention to detail are on full display. The movie conveys his disengagement, his odd and frequent sense of being removed.
I think one of the best scenes in the movie is when Bush makes it clear to Cheney that he's the boss—that Cheney can push and argue and have his say, but Bush is the boss. That's why I say (and I think Bart Gellman agrees with this in Angler, his book on Cheney) that the vice president was incredibly important, powerful, and persuasive, but that President Bush made these decisions on his own. He did so, as Ron said, "of his own free will."
The issue for history in the coming years and decades will be further examination of how Bush exercised that free will. I don't think he felt the constraints of his father's legacy, or even Cheney's influence or Powell's distance or Rumsfeld's attitude of "I'm in charge of the military." Again, I think Ron has hit on it: It's a question of the president's free will. In the end, the movie shows that.
I think the bending and distorting of history were not necessary for this film to make its point, but it does show that the Iraq war was and is George W. Bush's.
Bush Was the Decider
From: Bob Woodward
To: Oliver Stone, Ron Suskind, and Jacob WeisbergPosted Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2008, at 10:33 AM ET
Michael Isikoff is an investigative correspondent for Newsweek and the author of Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter's Story. Oliver Stone is an Academy Award-winning screenwriter and the director, most recently, of W. Ron Suskind is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and the author, most recently, of The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism. Jacob Weisberg is chairman and editor-in-chief of the Slate Group and author of The Bush Tragedy. Follow him at http://twitter.com/jacobwe. Bob Woodward is a Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter and the author, most recently, of The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008. Photograph of Oliver Stone with Josh Brolin on the set of W. in Entry 2 and still of Ellen Burstyn as Barbara Bush and James Cromwell as George H.W. Bush in W. by Sidney Ray Baldwin. Courtesy Lionsgate Films. Entry 10: Photograph of Oliver Stone and actors on the set by Sidney Ray Baldwin.
Movies are all about drama, not history-by-the-books.
Oliver Stone and Stanley Weiser get it exactly right by focusing on Bush's character, not on trying to capture the verbatim history of events. There was a lot of good reporting, particularly by Bob Woodward, but no stenographers were in any of the important meetings. Therefore, everything is subject to speculation. And here is where Oliver and Stanley gave a fabulous, real, large, and acutely accurate psychological reading of W. and the events and people who surrounded him.
This film will be studied for generations. Not only is it fair to the subject, "W.", it is also fair to the real, underlying truth of the characters and the events. Which is a major-league accomplishment by the writer and the director. Kudos to both Stanley Weiser and Oliver Stone.
--radlib1
(To reply, click here.)
While W's drinking and carrying-on didn't result in him getting fined, tossed in jail, etc., when he did achieve he didn't (literally) get the pat on the back either. Whatever W did was meaningless to him, whether it be crash the car into the front door or get elected to positions of incredible power and status.
--brewcrew2008
(To reply, click here.)
This all reminded me of the reviews I read of one of the biographies of Ronald Reagan, I believe it was "Dutch" by Edmund Morris. After being at Reagan's side for years and interviewing everyone he could who ever met Reagan he couldn't believe what he had found. He learned that Reagan was essentially a stuffed shirt, a kind of empty vessel who, like Bush, was incurious about the world and didn't really know how to fix any problems. But Morris could not believe this. Surely there must be more to Reagan. Thus he chocked it up to Reagan be a mysterious, inscrutable person of endless depth. Despite his closeness to Reagan Morris never found the bottom of the man, at least he couldn't believe that he had. Thus to explain Reagan Morris had to make up stories about Reagan and insert himself into events he wasn't a part of.
Suskind believes that some future writer will get a better and truer grasp of Bush. But if there is nothing else to grasp then Suskind is sounding or acting like Morris.
--doughdee222
(To reply, click here.)
One thing Mr. Woodward left out: yes, it was believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and, yes, we tried to make a case of it. And in the end we were wrong, but let's not forget, Saddam was less than forthcoming until the U.S.A was knocking at his door.
We can get all over the weapons-of-mass-destruction argument and bash Bush, Powell, and all the others who were wrong. But Saddam closed his doors to regular inspections by the U.N. (until the last minute) and kept his entire country under his thumb.
-Pachomius
(To reply, click here.)
A big part of his election campaign in 2000 was that he was the "CEO president" - that he would surround himself with advisers who were experts and would give him advice, and then he would make the decision. A huge problem with a "CEO" president who takes no time to understand any issue is that he is completely dependent on his advisers, and in this case, they were all some combination of delusional, insane, ideologically corrupt, incompetent, or gutless. Of course Bush decided to invade, he was fed information that could only lead him to one conclusion.
And this bit about Bush telling Cheney he's the boss - that had nothing to do with Cheney's control over policy, Bush just didn't want Cheney to appear to be making the decisions, and he wanted Cheney to be deferential to him. The whole Bush presidency was about him looking presidential, and being elected twice, and making big decisions to be remembered by. He had no real plan that he wanted to implement, he just wanted to look like he was in charge, and he didn't want Cheney to alter that perception.
--kgsbca
(To reply, click here.)
The points missing from the discussion are, first, the way people process information, and second, the fact that the political climate at the time created tangible benefits to Bush which disposed him towards war.
Intelligence assessments, the existence or not of WMD, possible links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda--all of the available facts and interpretations of facts available to Bush were heavily laced with ambiguity. When faced with decisions in the presence of even minimal ambiguity, almost no human beings can analyze them completely objectively, and most tend to be strongly disposed to make the interpretation that is most advantageous to them. This happens to all of us to some degree, without our awareness. We will interpret available facts, and even bend them, if necessary, in order to interpret them in a way consistent with our pre-dispositions, without even thinking about it.
Bush is clearly either less able or less willing to set aside his pre-existing beliefs than most people, and most people aren't very good at it. This must be considered against the fact that, during the spring and summer leading up to the Iraq invasion, in a political sense, war was working for Bush and Cheney. […] Although most people agreed that action against the Taliban in Afghanistan was justified, many doubted whether it would be effective. However, by early in 2002, the skeptics looked wrong. […] It was a huge political success for Bush at the time, and defining himself as The Anti-terrorist became the strategy used to help Republicans gain in the 2002 elections.
I don't know if Weisberg is right that a decision was made to go to war in Iraq in mid 2002. But a psychology disposed toward war was strongly entrenched, and continued to be further fortified by the political advantage the Republicans gained from exploiting the conflict. The result may well have been that no single over-riding reason was needed. Between all of the players involved, a group-think took over in which each could assemble their own justifications from a long list of possibilities.
When you have a democracy governed by a collective dominated by a group-think that has been re-enforced by tangible benefits to the leaders resulting their interpretation of sketchy data, and when that same collective has great control over the presentation of the available datta to everyone else, the only reasons that really matter are the ones that will sell the idea to the public.
--not_abel
(To reply, click here.)
I wish I had the date of the speech so I could go back and listen to it again. During the 2000 campaign, I heard a snippet of Bush speaking on the radio in which he said something to the effect of, "We don't have a monolithic enemy like in the days of the 50s, we have instead this vague unstructured threat field" What struck me about it was that he sounded wistful, disappointed that he missed all the fun of facing down an evil empire, going toe to toe against Kruschev. He was right, of course, about the vague unstructured threat field, but I think he wanted to test himself against the consolidated forces of evil. So I think he was predisposed to look for a monolithic enemy, to see the actions of a terrorist cabal as one face of evil incarnate. He wasn't content to fight Al Qaeda, he needed to be god's warrior and declared a global war on terror.
--Swampdog
(To reply, click here.)
(10/28)
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Movies are all about drama, not history-by-the-books.
Oliver Stone and Stanley Weiser get it exactly right by focusing on Bush's character, not on trying to capture the verbatim history of events. There was a lot of good reporting, particularly by Bob Woodward, but no stenographers were in any of the important meetings. Therefore, everything is subject to speculation. And here is where Oliver and Stanley gave a fabulous, real, large, and acutely accurate psychological reading of W. and the events and people who surrounded him.
This film will be studied for generations. Not only is it fair to the subject, "W.", it is also fair to the real, underlying truth of the characters and the events. Which is a major-league accomplishment by the writer and the director. Kudos to both Stanley Weiser and Oliver Stone.
--radlib1
(To reply, click here.)
While W's drinking and carrying-on didn't result in him getting fined, tossed in jail, etc., when he did achieve he didn't (literally) get the pat on the back either. Whatever W did was meaningless to him, whether it be crash the car into the front door or get elected to positions of incredible power and status.
--brewcrew2008
(To reply, click here.)
This all reminded me of the reviews I read of one of the biographies of Ronald Reagan, I believe it was "Dutch" by Edmund Morris. After being at Reagan's side for years and interviewing everyone he could who ever met Reagan he couldn't believe what he had found. He learned that Reagan was essentially a stuffed shirt, a kind of empty vessel who, like Bush, was incurious about the world and didn't really know how to fix any problems. But Morris could not believe this. Surely there must be more to Reagan. Thus he chocked it up to Reagan be a mysterious, inscrutable person of endless depth. Despite his closeness to Reagan Morris never found the bottom of the man, at least he couldn't believe that he had. Thus to explain Reagan Morris had to make up stories about Reagan and insert himself into events he wasn't a part of.
Suskind believes that some future writer will get a better and truer grasp of Bush. But if there is nothing else to grasp then Suskind is sounding or acting like Morris.
--doughdee222
(To reply, click here.)
One thing Mr. Woodward left out: yes, it was believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and, yes, we tried to make a case of it. And in the end we were wrong, but let's not forget, Saddam was less than forthcoming until the U.S.A was knocking at his door.
We can get all over the weapons-of-mass-destruction argument and bash Bush, Powell, and all the others who were wrong. But Saddam closed his doors to regular inspections by the U.N. (until the last minute) and kept his entire country under his thumb.
-Pachomius
(To reply, click here.)
A big part of his election campaign in 2000 was that he was the "CEO president" - that he would surround himself with advisers who were experts and would give him advice, and then he would make the decision. A huge problem with a "CEO" president who takes no time to understand any issue is that he is completely dependent on his advisers, and in this case, they were all some combination of delusional, insane, ideologically corrupt, incompetent, or gutless. Of course Bush decided to invade, he was fed information that could only lead him to one conclusion.
And this bit about Bush telling Cheney he's the boss - that had nothing to do with Cheney's control over policy, Bush just didn't want Cheney to appear to be making the decisions, and he wanted Cheney to be deferential to him. The whole Bush presidency was about him looking presidential, and being elected twice, and making big decisions to be remembered by. He had no real plan that he wanted to implement, he just wanted to look like he was in charge, and he didn't want Cheney to alter that perception.
--kgsbca
(To reply, click here.)
The points missing from the discussion are, first, the way people process information, and second, the fact that the political climate at the time created tangible benefits to Bush which disposed him towards war.
Intelligence assessments, the existence or not of WMD, possible links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda--all of the available facts and interpretations of facts available to Bush were heavily laced with ambiguity. When faced with decisions in the presence of even minimal ambiguity, almost no human beings can analyze them completely objectively, and most tend to be strongly disposed to make the interpretation that is most advantageous to them. This happens to all of us to some degree, without our awareness. We will interpret available facts, and even bend them, if necessary, in order to interpret them in a way consistent with our pre-dispositions, without even thinking about it.
Bush is clearly either less able or less willing to set aside his pre-existing beliefs than most people, and most people aren't very good at it. This must be considered against the fact that, during the spring and summer leading up to the Iraq invasion, in a political sense, war was working for Bush and Cheney. […] Although most people agreed that action against the Taliban in Afghanistan was justified, many doubted whether it would be effective. However, by early in 2002, the skeptics looked wrong. […] It was a huge political success for Bush at the time, and defining himself as The Anti-terrorist became the strategy used to help Republicans gain in the 2002 elections.
I don't know if Weisberg is right that a decision was made to go to war in Iraq in mid 2002. But a psychology disposed toward war was strongly entrenched, and continued to be further fortified by the political advantage the Republicans gained from exploiting the conflict. The result may well have been that no single over-riding reason was needed. Between all of the players involved, a group-think took over in which each could assemble their own justifications from a long list of possibilities.
When you have a democracy governed by a collective dominated by a group-think that has been re-enforced by tangible benefits to the leaders resulting their interpretation of sketchy data, and when that same collective has great control over the presentation of the available datta to everyone else, the only reasons that really matter are the ones that will sell the idea to the public.
--not_abel
(To reply, click here.)
I wish I had the date of the speech so I could go back and listen to it again. During the 2000 campaign, I heard a snippet of Bush speaking on the radio in which he said something to the effect of, "We don't have a monolithic enemy like in the days of the 50s, we have instead this vague unstructured threat field" What struck me about it was that he sounded wistful, disappointed that he missed all the fun of facing down an evil empire, going toe to toe against Kruschev. He was right, of course, about the vague unstructured threat field, but I think he wanted to test himself against the consolidated forces of evil. So I think he was predisposed to look for a monolithic enemy, to see the actions of a terrorist cabal as one face of evil incarnate. He wasn't content to fight Al Qaeda, he needed to be god's warrior and declared a global war on terror.
--Swampdog
(To reply, click here.)
(10/28)