Woodward Book Reveals Potholes For White House

by Steve

It looks like the Woodward book may be the gift that keeps on giving. First, Woodward confirms that General John Abizaid has wanted to get our troops out of Iraq for awhile now, but the White House at Henry Kissinger’s urging sees Iraq as another Vietnam, and refuses to leave until they defeat the insurgency, even if it means that the sectarian violence splits the country apart.

And it appears John Murtha's views aren't that far apart from the senior commanders on the ground.

This March, Abizaid was in Washington to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee. He painted a careful but upbeat picture of the situation in Iraq.

Afterward, he went over to see Rep. John P. Murtha in the Rayburn House Office Building. Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, had introduced a resolution in Congress calling for American troops in Iraq to be "redeployed" -- the military term for returning troops overseas to their home bases -- "at the earliest practicable date." "The war in Iraq is not going as advertised," Murtha had said. "It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion."

Now, sitting at the round dark-wood table in the congressman's office, Abizaid, the one uniformed military commander who had been intimately involved in Iraq from the beginning and who was still at it, indicated he wanted to speak frankly. According to Murtha, Abizaid raised his hand for emphasis, held his thumb and forefinger a quarter of an inch from each other and said, "We're that far apart."

In another revelation from Woodward’s book, the Agency’s George Tenet and Cofer Black became so concerned about a possible Al Qaeda strike against the United States during the months before 9/11 that they requested an immediate meeting with Condi Rice on July 10th, 2001. Keep in mind this was a month before the infamous and ignored August 6, 2001 PDB. But during the meeting Rice appeared to be focused on other issues like Star Wars and dismissed the warnings, and Rumsfeld had openly poured cold water upon the threats within the Administration as a possible ruse by Al Qaeda to test America’s responses.

There’s one major problem about the July 10th meeting: 9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow, a close Rice confidant, knew about this meeting, but never told Commissioners about it, so it never was investigated. No one else inside the administration told the Commission about the meeting either. It was covered up. According to a counsel for the Commission, withholding this information is a possible crime.