(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
After September 11, 2001, George W. Bush tried to construct a comprehensive war narrative. Bush presented himself – and also proved himself – as a strong war president with a will to act. And around him a small circle of key figures – a kind of war cabinet. The United States would take revenge. The Bush administration reconstructed its foreign policy strategy, and the fight against terrorism was under way. The focus was on "al Qaeda" – which was then unknown to most people. And Bush was talking about a "new order." But then came Iraq – the war cabinet's main project. We were suddenly back in yesterday's world. The threat was no longer an unknown and borderless terrorist network, but a well-known figure: Saddam Hussein. But then came the problems. The mix of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and al Qaeda was questionable. People knew this, and so did Bush. What not everyone knew was how obsessed Bush and his little war cabinet were with cracking Saddam, and how irrational this seems in retrospect. What drove Bush away from the main al Qaeda track, and over to Iraq? This is what we are all thinking about these days. And these are two new, and very much discussed books trying to answer. Both the former anti-terror boss and bureaucrat Richard Clarke and the star journalist Bob Woodward tell in their different ways how it went as they went. Both books can and should be read as a critique of Bush's Iraq policy. Although Clarke is far more clear than Woodward, he still has one thing in common: the stories are not written at a cool distance from the movements of the story. They are political actions – interventions – that try to influence the ongoing discussion about Iraq. This is what makes both books exciting. But at the same time problematic.
Clarke's criticism
Richard Clarke is the tough, efficient and loyal bureaucrat who has worked on intelligence issues in Washington for over thirty years. Not least as anti-terrorism chief from 1998, directly subordinate to the president. A real insider. It is not surprising that a bureaucrat who suddenly goes out in public with a critique of the administration he has served under attracts attention. But it is rare that it attracts as much attention as in Clarke's case. Now it must be said that the book release came at a very lucky time. His book – and also his critique – coincides with the enormous problems facing the United States in Iraq. The book was also published just before Clarke was to testify in the extensive consultation rounds in the 11/9 commission.
Clarke's criticism is directed mainly at the Bush administration and consists of two components: the flawed fight against terrorism in the period before 11/9/2001, and the derailment in Iraq. The United States was unable to deal with the terrorist threat. They had not succeeded in removing the vulnerability, nor had they created a clear alternative to fundamentalist Islam, nor in the end had they managed to organize a broad alliance of many countries that together could remove the causes of terrorism. Clarke is scared first and foremost. Not least because of the Bush administration's lack of interest in cracking down on the real terrorists. Instead, Iraq emerged. Which was no immediate threat. Clarke describes in detail all the opposition he met in the Bush administration, which seems totally stuck in its Iraq track. The Bush administration was unable to analyze cross-border global terrorism. The focus was on yesterday's world: China, Russia, missile defense and nuclear weapons. With others little terrorism. Eventually, the terrorist expert Clarke was frozen out: "There was no time for terrorism". Clarke's efforts notwithstanding.
Clarke's storytelling
With the exception of the opening chapter which deals with the intense minutes after the 11/1 attacks, and the closing chapter where the mistakes in Iraq are systematically described, this is an account of how the world's leading superpower has dealt with terrorism in the last three decades. Hence most about Reagen, Bush 2 and Clinton. Less about Bush 1970. Hence more about the CIA and the FBI. Less about al Qaeda. Clarke is good at the historical: How American foreign policy in the late XNUMXs moved from the Soviet Union and south to the Middle East, to Iran, Afghanistan – into the unknown. He believes it is the Americans' own fault that the country now fears terrorism. It is the United States itself that has created the resistance they face: the main problem is the prolonged military presence, especially in Saudi Arabia.
Instead, Clarke believes that in 1991 one should have quickly broken – if not Saddam – then at least the Republican Guard. Therefore, Clarke also believes that the mistake the Americans made in Afghanistan was not to go in militarily stronger than they did, when they first tried.
Self-righteous and national
Clarke continues his story by telling about terrorism and anti-terrorism measures in the 1990s. About the World Trade Center, Somalia, Tokyo, New York, Atlanta, Khobar, Bosnia, Tanzania, Kenya, Sudan, Yemen, al Qaeda, and of course September 11th. A lot went wrong in the 1990s. But a lot went, according to Clarke, also very well. Many thanks to Bill Clinton – and himself. Clinton did not initially focus on terrorism, but on "failed states". Slowly but surely, Clinton still helped set aside money for anti-terrorism work. $ 5,7 billion in 1995 was increased to $ 11 billion in 2000: "He had seen earlier than anyone that terrorism would be the major new threat facing America."
Clarke er mostly factual, and his book is not a party post for the Democrats in the presidential election campaign. It just seems that way, because at times he is so positive about Clinton, and very little self-critical. Given Clarke's central role in the whole thing, it is striking that he does not try to look at his own role from the outside.
At times, one is struck by how national and loyal Clarke is. Across globalization and borderless terror, Clarke, paradoxically, ends up praising national security and the need to protect the constitution from foreign enemies who use terrorism as a weapon. He disagrees with Bush on how to use military force, but still agrees that military force is a useful tool in the fight against terrorism. Clarke also writes very little about the conflict between Israel and Palestine. And very little about inequality in social and economic living conditions. Terrorism is first and foremost ideological.
Woodwards story
Woodward is also close to power – even though he is a journalist, with revelations about Watergate on his conscience. As editor of the Washington Post, he continues to publish books about presidents and the environment at the top of the political establishment. Only a year and a half after the book Bush and war – which was about Bush's handling of the terrorist attacks of September 11 and the war in Afghanistan – there is a new 450-page colossus about the planning of the Iraq war.
And Woodward has gained full access to the most centrally located players – a total of 75 he has interviewed, including the president for three and a half hours: "I wanted to take a reader as close as possible to the decision making that led to war". Everything should therefore be ready for an exciting, realistic thriller about the president's decision-making process. The book is saturated with small details from the 16 months from November 2001 to March 2003. Meetings, telephone conversations, interviews, planning, scenarios, personal conflicts, motives and emotions are key keywords for the action. It has become a narrative, not a critical analysis. The aim is to investigate what "actually happened" and only exceptionally "provide some interpretations and occasional analysis".
We know the main characters: President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, General Franks, Security Adviser Rice, Secretary of State Powell, CIA chief Tenet. In short, the president's men. But also a couple of congressmen like Tom Daschle and Bob Graham are involved. And a couple of foreigners: Tony Blair, Prince Bandar from Saudi Arabia and Hans Blix. Most of the book's action therefore takes place in Washington, primarily in the White House. In other words, it is a small – but frighteningly important – part of the world we get to know.
Woodwards personal gallery
Unlike in the previous book, this time we meet a far more nuanced and sympathetic Bush who in the interviews has time to speak out and reflect. Maybe that's why several of Bush's own advisers have recommended people read the book.
The choice Bush faced – between war or diplomacy – also went to the heart of the conflict between the people in the decision-making environment around him: "He was planning for war, and he was conducting diplomacy aiming to avoid war. At times, the war planning aided the diplomacy; at many other points it contradicted it ”.
We both get to know the decisive Bush og the questioning and doubting Bush: "What should I do?", "Should we do this?". At the same time, he is a strategist who has great ideas, and will act: "The decision to go to war will be my decision". Unless Bush is portrayed as a hero, he's still the skipper on board. He does not fully support Rusmfeld's war plans or Powell's diplomatic line. But takes a little from both. The contradictions between Cheney and Powell are described several times as profound: "Rarely, however, there had been such a deep division within a national security team as between Cheney and Powell." In many ways, Powell appears as the book's hero. He stands alone, but with the support of his closest colleague and assistant Richard Armitage, as well as world opinion, he fights for his cause. He follows the UN trail as far as he can. This is how the book should be read as a critique of Bush's Iraq strategy.
Woodwards method
Plan of attack is a well written book. And exciting. But what does it tell us? Woodward's "new journalism" has its shortcomings. Although he is close to the sources and quotes directly, the quotes are detached from the actual act of action. Woodward interprets and analyzes to a small degree, but it is clear that he edits a narrative in very specific ways, which in turn gives a personally interpreted picture of the course of events. At times, one is unsure of what separates Woodward's own thoughts from those of the main characters. The main weakness, however, is that the book does not tell us more about why Bush and his men did as they did: what drove them, and what made them occupied by Iraq? To answer this, one must go further back in history, and not start as Woodward did, in 2001. Plan of attack is primarily about the struggle between people and environments, not ideas. More fundamentally, this is about Woodward himself, who in and of himself is a figure of power who has moved away from the journalist's critical sphere and over to the establishment. And then the facts no longer speak for themselves?
1
