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Bekijk Volledige Versie : Bob Woodward: Powell wist nergens van



Amlou
20-04-04, 09:46
Volledige text op: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/15/60minutes/main612067.shtml

(CBS) Journalist Bob Woodward calls his new book, “Plan of Attack,” the first detailed, behind-the-scenes account of how and why the president decided to wage war in Iraq.

It’s an insider’s account written after Woodward spoke with 75 of the key decision makers, including President Bush himself.

The president permitted Woodward to quote him directly. Others spoke on the condition that Woodward not identify them as sources.

Woodward discusses the secret details of the White House's plans to attack Iraq for the first time on television with Correspondent Mike Wallace.

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Woodward says that many of the quotes came directly from the president: “When I interviewed him for the first time several months ago up in the residence of the White House, he just kind of out of the blue said, ‘It's the story of the 21st Century,’ his decision to undertake this war and start a preemptive attack on another country."

Woodward reports that just five days after Sept. 11, President Bush indicated to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice that while he had to do Afghanistan first, he was also determined to do something about Saddam Hussein.

”There's some pressure to go after Saddam Hussein. Don Rumsfeld has said, ‘This is an opportunity to take out Saddam Hussein, perhaps. We should consider it.’ And the president says to Condi Rice meeting head to head, ‘We won't do Iraq now.’ But it is a question we're gonna have to return to,’” says Woodward.

“And there's this low boil on Iraq until the day before Thanksgiving, Nov. 21, 2001. This is 72 days after 9/11. This is part of this secret history. President Bush, after a National Security Council meeting, takes Don Rumsfeld aside, collars him physically, and takes him into a little cubbyhole room and closes the door and says, ‘What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq? What is the status of the war plan? I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret.’"

Did Mr. Bush ask his father for any advice? “I asked the president about this. And President Bush said, ‘Well, no,’ and then he got defensive about it,” says Woodward. “Then he said something that really struck me. He said of his father, ‘He is the wrong father to appeal to for advice. The wrong father to go to, to appeal to in terms of strength.’ And then he said, ‘There's a higher Father that I appeal to.’"

Beyond not asking his father about going to war, Woodward was startled to learn that the president did not ask key cabinet members either.

”The president, in making the decision to go to war, did not ask his secretary of defense for an overall recommendation, did not ask his secretary of state, Colin Powell, for his recommendation,” says Woodward.