State of Denial

Abstract

Insurgents and terrorists retain resources and capabilities to sustain and even increase current level of violence through next year.'' This was secret Pentagon assessment sent to White House in May 2006. The forecast of a more violent 2007 in Iraq contradicted repeated optimistic statements of President Bush, including one, two days earlier, when he said we were at a ''turning point that history would mark as time the forces of terror began their long retreat. State of Denial examines how Bush administration avoided telling truth about Iraq to public, to Congress, and often to themselves. Two days after May report, Pentagon told Congress, in a report required by law, that appeal and motivation for continued violent action will begin to wane in early 2007. In this detailed inside story of a war-torn White House, Bob Woodward reveals how White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, with indirect support of other high officials, tried for 18 months to get Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld replaced. The president and Vice President Cheney refused. At beginning of Bush's second term, Stephen Hadley, who replaced Condoleezza Rice as national security adviser, gave administration a 'D minus' on implementing its policies. A secret report to new Secretary of State Rice from her counselor stated that, nearly two years after invasion, Iraq was a failed state. The book reveals that at urging of Cheney and Rumsfeld, most frequent outside visitor and Iraq adviser to President Bush is former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who, haunted still by loss in Vietnam, emerges as a hidden and potent voice. Woodward reveals that secretary of defense himself believes that system of coordination among departments and agencies is broken, and in a secret May 1, 2006 memo Rumsfeld stated, that the current system of government makes competence next to impossible. State of Denial answers core questions: What happened after invasion of Iraq? Why? How does Bush make decisions and manage a war that he chose to define his presidency? And is there an achievable plan for victory?

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