Investigative journalist Bob Woodward’s new book, “The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008,” looks at the Bush administration’s review of the Iraq war in October 2006, which “did not include military participants and proceeded secretly because of White House fears that news coverage of a review might damage Republican chances in the midterm congressional elections.” Members of the White House are already starting to separate themselves from their Iraq policies, pointing the blame at each other:
“Let’s cut to the chase. Hadley drove a lot of this.” — President Bush, “The War Within”
– “I reported to the President on the progress of the review on a daily basis — where things stood, what ideas were emerging — and received direction from the President. President Bush drove the process to conclusion and made a tough decision.” — National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, 9/5/08
The White House has so far refused to deny that it has been spying on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
I guess it won’t be long before all the Iraq problems will be the fault of the Dems, right?
September 6th, 2008 at 5:21 pmTypical of the North american governemt… they invade the country. they destroy the country, then they have the face to blame the people of the country they invaded for all the lack of morals, expertise and conpetence. HAGUE 2009!
September 6th, 2008 at 5:23 pmThey already tried that with Karl Rove’s bullshit that the White House did NOT want a vote on the war before the 2002 midterm elections…because it would “politicize” the elections. The Democrats held a majority that year and Rove basically said with a straight face that the Democratic Congress was so gung-ho for war that the WHite House had to concede and ask for a vote.
September 6th, 2008 at 5:26 pmRemember that for every finger they point, has 3 pointed back at them…
September 6th, 2008 at 5:31 pm“Let’s cut to the chase. Hadley drove a lot of this.” — President Bush
President Bush, Outsourcer-in-Chief
September 6th, 2008 at 5:33 pmSo, Hadley, was THE DECIDER(TM)?
September 6th, 2008 at 5:34 pm“Let’s cut to the chase. Hadley drove a lot of this.” — President Bush, “The War Within”
Since when the fu(k has Stephen Hadley occupied the Oval Office , you retarded simian b1tch ?
This is a “leader” , right , trolls ?
September 6th, 2008 at 5:35 pmWait a minute. Is “The Decider” trying to tell us that there was someone in his administration (besides Cheney) who had more control over the government than he did?
I believe that Rachel Maddow would call this what it is: LYING!
September 6th, 2008 at 5:35 pmWhy is it that I get the feeling that this country has been speeding down the highway with no one at the wheel and everyone in the back seat?
September 6th, 2008 at 5:35 pmHow in the world do you do an assessment of the war without inviting the military ?
September 6th, 2008 at 5:35 pm“Why is it that I get the feeling that this country has been speeding down the highway with no one at the wheel and everyone in the back seat?”
LL, that sounds just like a recurring nightmare that I get, where I’m trying to drive the car FROM the back seat, and I can’t see ’cause I don’t have my glasses on. I never thought that I was channelling Bush!
September 6th, 2008 at 5:40 pmHe did it! No, He did it!
Sheesh, talk about not being able to take responsibility for your own actions of failure.
September 6th, 2008 at 5:40 pmBut. But. But, “party of accountability”!
September 6th, 2008 at 5:50 pmBush has to put it on somebody. Do you think he’s going to take the hit? Bush sure as hell isn’t going to implicate whose fault it really is – G O D!
Isn’t that who counseled him in the run-up?
September 6th, 2008 at 5:51 pmThe blame game is part of the Republican show. They know it gets people stirred up, thus they get their attention. Then they never resolve it.
The McCain family has its own black eye in a “like father, like son” deal. Andrew McCain was on the Board of Directors of Silver Lake Bank, the 11th bank failure of the year.
Papa had Lincoln Savings & Loan, the son has Silver Lake.
September 6th, 2008 at 5:53 pmpete Says:
But. But. But, “party of accountability”!
September 6th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
No, no, Pete, they’re the “party of personal responsibility”, but the only times that they might admit responsibility, they can just say, “So, what’re ya gonna do about it?” They are NEVER accountable.
September 6th, 2008 at 5:54 pmI’m reminded of that old “Family Circus” cartoon where the mom is standing in a sea of her spawn pointing at a broken lamp and all the kids are saying “Not Me!” and there’s a snickering ghost behind a chair with not me printed on its chest. I’m making a “Family Circus” allusion so the trolls will get it.
September 6th, 2008 at 5:54 pmThe best is that we are seeing the last eight years in government playing out campaign style.
Obstruction of justice.
Lies and Deceit.
Refusal to answer any questions.
No accountability.
For all of the half-a$$ed effort to distance himself from Bush over the past week (literally by proximity only), he sure isn’t put up much of a front.
September 6th, 2008 at 5:54 pmOT: Looks like Ike is heading towards LA.
September 6th, 2008 at 5:56 pmWoodward is a credible source and the clips coming out of this book are damning to the President.
The appearance that he’s shirking responsibility for any of the Iraq policy, doesn’t play well.
Also (although everyone else here already knew it), Woodward’s dismissal that the surge was not the cause of the reductions in Iraqi violence, significantly undercut the McCain charge that it was the surge that caused the turn around.
I don’t usually buy books (to cheap, go to library), but maybe I’ll spend the money on this one.
September 6th, 2008 at 5:57 pm“How in the world do you do an assessment of the war without inviting the military ?”
They are elitist. You can’t listen to them.
September 6th, 2008 at 6:04 pmSorry, Republicans, you cannot run from Bush’s disastrous record. Prepare for twenty years of minority status for your miserable party of thieves and traitors.
September 6th, 2008 at 6:06 pmVery true Jane. I still can’t help but be continually amazed, though no longer surprised, by their sheer audacity. As I’ve said before: At least when Bart Simpson says “I didn’t do it” there is a slight chance he’s telling the truth. These dang GOOPERS though, when they say “I didn’t do it” you can be 100% assured that they did it, and a few extra crimes in covering the first one.
September 6th, 2008 at 6:07 pmIt’s probably not relevant but, I’ve long wondered how many whuppins Chimpy’s lil brothers took for stuff the sneaky weasel hung on their heads? It would be VERY interesting if one of them ever turned on him. The stories that have come out about about the young dictator, not to mention his disastrous reign, would suggest he was always quite a monster.
September 6th, 2008 at 6:19 pm. . . and Woodward will spend the better part of the next week pimping his book to remind America that Republicans can’t be trusted to fix these massive and very tragic Republican failures.
September 6th, 2008 at 6:21 pmAnd the Reichwhiners will scream about how Bob Woodward is bitter because he couldn’t get Nixon convicted and he’s trying to “get” Chimpy because he’s there. Then they’ll say he’s in it for the money. Plus the obligatory “pinhead” and “far-left loon” crap
September 6th, 2008 at 6:27 pmYou know how this will end, right? It was all Clinton’s fault! Which Clinton, you ask? Doesn’t matter!
That’s the beauty of being a Republican!
But seriously, I believe the Bush Crime Family sees the writing on the wall, and they know that the Dems will have the White House and both houses of congress come January.
Their arguments remind of Nuremburg. Actually, their collective arguments and finger pointing are really no different from any other war criminal. I just hope that Obama and Biden have more of a stomach for truth and justice than poor Pelosi does.
PEACE
September 6th, 2008 at 6:33 pmWhat were we told, time and again, by the kool-aid drinking Bush cultists? Wasn’t it that the Iraq invasion had been an absolute success?
Weren’t we supposed to believe that Iraq was a shining example of a stable, peaceful democracy?
Well, kool-aid drinkers, there you have it: Not even your Dear (mis)Leader believes the claptrap that he spews, and that you so eagerly parrot. Not to mention the failure he has proven himself to be.
I wonder what it feels to have been so duped, for so long.
September 6th, 2008 at 6:33 pmInvestigative journalist Bob Woodward’s new book, “The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008,” looks at the Bush administration’s review of the Iraq war in October 2006 . . .
I can already predict the tone, and scope of this book:
Dogpile on Rummy!
September 6th, 2008 at 6:45 pmThis is OT, but, has anyone seen this?
It seems to me that if Sarah Palin wanted to keep her family from being in the spot light, that she wouldn’t have allowed the exploitation of her daughter over the tubes.
(As a side note: Does anyone else have the problems that I have with HuffPo? It seems that their servers are way to slow or something. It doesn’t matter which computer I’m using, the site seems very bogged down. I rarely go there any more because of this.)
September 6th, 2008 at 6:48 pmNot to take anything from Bob Woodward written book about internal problems in Bush’s administration, the majority of Americans can see and smell that things were not and still not going well regarding wars in Afghanstan and Iraq despite all promises and claims to the contrary,without reading any book.
September 6th, 2008 at 6:57 pmThe world also can see that too.
One does not need to know what went wrong inside his contractor’s office to smell trouble, if the building promised by contractor still not finished after few years from original promised date,the cost became ten times original cost,and still no sign of finishing the building yet.
Again proving his cowardice. He shames himself by implying he had no control of the most vital decisions in his administration. And by not taking responsibility for his regime he falls on the Nazi defense of I knew nothing. War criminal, substandard human.
September 6th, 2008 at 6:57 pmRemember Mitt Romney’s Lie about Gore’s non-existant Private Jet. I haven’t seen Romney’s retraction and apology to Gore anywhere.
Remember Sarah Palin’s Lie about selling her State of Alaska Luxury Jet on e-bay for a Profit. I haven’t seen any retraction about that either.
Now this:
Tucson-based Global Aircraft Solutions Inc. on Thursday delivered Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s new campaign plane, an Embraer 190 regional jet complete with the Republican ticket’s campaign logo on the fuselage.
I’m not holding my breath for the media to notice this hypocracy,
September 6th, 2008 at 6:59 pmIt seems to me that if Sarah Palin wanted to keep her family from being in the spot light, that she wouldn’t have allowed the exploitation of her daughter over the tubes.
It seems to me that she wouldn’t have accepted the position in the first place, knowing what she did about her daughter.
September 6th, 2008 at 7:04 pmupside99 Says:
I guess it won’t be long before all the Iraq problems will be the fault of the Dems, right?
________
Wasn’t it Rove who already tried that?
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/30/card-discredits-rove/
SCARBOROUGH: We have to start with something that we all are talking about a couple of days ago where Karl Rove went on Charlie Rose and he blamed the Democrats for pushing him and the president into war. Is that how it worked?
The… the Dems FORCED Bush to attack Iraq!!!
The GOOP has also tried floating the idea that Bush really isn’t a conservative, and therefore one of theirs, but really more of a closet lib’rul…
I mean, fer Christ’s sake, would a REAL CONSERVATIVE spent money like that???
September 6th, 2008 at 7:05 pmSpy and lie and smear and fear and stonewall: the Bush-Cheney crime family playbook and Palin seems to be picking up these right-wing techniques very quickly… She lied about her support for “the bridge to nowhere.” McCain has been stupidly lying about Palin’s sale of the State of Alaska jet: it was not sold on Ebay (it was sold through a broker to a Palin campaign contributor), it was not sold at a profit (it was sold for $600,000 less than its $2.7M purchase price. Corruption, Palin- style?).
September 6th, 2008 at 7:05 pmThis would be fun, watching these bastards rat each other out, except I’m reminded the nation has been bankrupted because of these mucking forons.
September 6th, 2008 at 8:04 pmHague 09!
If bush is pointing fingers then the cause of all the problems must be up his nose, and ass…
September 6th, 2008 at 9:30 pmBobwurst Says:
If bush is pointing fingers then the cause of all the problems must be up his nose, and ass…
September 6th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
“Get that finger out of your ear! You don’t know where that finger’s been!” :D
September 7th, 2008 at 1:15 amWhat ever happened to “the buck stops here”? Now Bush wants to blame the problem on Condi Rice’s then chief deputy Steven Hadley. Hadley was also the head of the WhiteHouse Iraq Group (WHIG) that was the propaganda arm for the invasion of Iraq and later the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. What a handy scapegoat Hadley has become. Still, how can a deputy to the National Security advisor have final responsibility for these operations and how can he be promoted to the top job if his advise is so seriously flawed. Bush needs to stop whinning and accept responsibility for the final decision rather than the cowardly pointing fingers at a 2nd tier government employee.
September 7th, 2008 at 1:17 am“Bush needs to stop whinning and accept responsibility for the final decision rather than the cowardly pointing fingers at a 2nd tier government employee.”
Sad to say, but it’ll probably be a cold day in hell before Bush accepts responsibility for anything.
September 7th, 2008 at 1:21 amtarazan Says:
One does not need to know what went wrong inside his contractor’s office to smell trouble, if the building promised by contractor still not finished after few years from original promised date,the cost became ten times original cost,and still no sign of finishing the building yet.
September 6th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
________
Actually, one does need to know that. One absolutely needs to know whether the problem is arising, say, because there are internal conflicts between the architects and framers and plumbers and electricians, because geological conditions at the job site are causing lots of alterations to the plan, or because the entire company is colluding to scam the customer. Each of these requires a different response from the customer.
September 7th, 2008 at 7:56 amI point my longest finger at all these neo-con criminals.
September 7th, 2008 at 8:16 amBush is such an immoral man that he’ll throw his own aide’s under the bus to try to salvage his legacy. He’s easily the worst excuse for a human being to ever sit in the Oval Office.
September 7th, 2008 at 11:11 am#30
September 7th, 2008 at 3:25 pmThere have been complaints about HuffPO. I find that it loads slowly and it does not matter which computer or server — it may have something to do with the ads because Raw Story loads almost as slowly as Huffpo.
Like two schoolboys after having been caught misbehaving –
Each one blaming the other for driving the policy.
NO ONE accepts responsibility. No one.
September 7th, 2008 at 3:32 pmWatch on YOUTUBE : “THE PANAMA DECEPTION”. They have invaded others before and blamed someone else…
September 7th, 2008 at 3:42 pm