What You're not hearing about State of Denial

I think the most important issues raised in SoD, beyond the snippets and "eye bites," are actually not being talked about.
I have now read this book cover to cover and think one of the most remarkable, yet unremarked, issues is the civilian politicians meddling with the military. This is in direct contravention to what Bush REALLY wants to put out--that he is guided by reports and recommendations from commanders on the ground. He's not--Whats really obvious is how Rumsfeld controls the information getting to Bush. It all goes through his filter.

When Rumsfeld took the job, his big keyword was Transformation--he was going to take the military establishment on head to head. As a matter of fact, in a speech, he called the entrenched military establishment the worst threat America faced--this was(I'm not making this up) said on 9/10/01. It looks like he did--and won. There's many items to cover here, not all from Woodards book.
One of the most significant things he did was downgrade the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from advisor to the President to under Rumsfeld in the chain of comand. There's a story in it about how Adm Vern Clark (CNO) was turned down for the job because Rummy didn't think he would be pliable. He told Rummy that regulation required he report to the President and Rummy didn't like it. Then-Chmn JCS Myers and current Chairman Pace are now Rumsfelds creatures, echoing his thoughts and kissing his ass. Myers complains about this cosiderably in the book, you could see him getting an ulcer from dealing with Rumsfeld. This cuts Bush out of anything Rummy doesn't want him to hear.
The last books I read before this were Fiasco and Cobra II who cover the war in a lot more detail so I knew a lot about this already--Rummy trashing the Tipfiddle (TPPFL) is in both the other books in greater detail. What this was was the Army's all purpose plan--logistics, especially for any evetuality. This can be customized as needed but its basically the Army's perception of what it needs to go to war.
This is where Shinseki got the numbers he was quoting when he said it would take 450,000 troops to secure the country. Shinseki was run out the door for going with the Army's own numbers but it turns out the numbers were spot on. Rummy tossed the tipfiddle out, coming up wiht his own numbers. This is why we went into Iraq with as few troops as we did (basically 2 reinforced combat divisions)when we went into Gulf War 1 with 3 times as many and weren't trying to acomplish so much. The sole reason we did was Rumsfeld--he browbeat the Pentagon into it.
What this is really remisiniscent of is Hitler's invasion of Russia. His generals pogued the numbers to make it work for him too, against their better judgement. Thegy changed their numbers to meet his fantasies about Russia, not the reality on the ground. It was just plain wishful thinking on their parts, just like this war. They knew better and ultimately paid the price. Need less to say that ended up disastrously.
This War has Rumsfeld written all over it, especially the fuckups.
I already knew that the Coalition Provisional Authority was a Defense Department thing--Bremer was chosen by Rumsefeld but then proceeded to act as if he reported to the President only. This teed Rummy off considerably and had a considerable to do with the poor way the CPA and the military interacted. Evryone claimed the others were responsible for security--and no one was.
The CPA was a disaster. We now know that applicants were vetted primarily on their party loyalty; that former Repoublican political envelope stuffers were given huge responsibilities they had no training or experience in. We know that better qualified people were kept out for political cosiderations. Is there ANYTHING left of the billions they sunk into Iraq?
This book shows once again (Fiasco does it better)how Rumsfeld pretty much blew off "Phase IV" planning (after the war) Rummy was captive to the Neocon myth that we would be treated as liberators--this myth permeated the whole runup to the war. Even though Phase IV plaining was supposed to be done, when Jay Garner went into Iraq to start reconstratuction he had nothing on paper at all. He had to make up his own objectives--which then became Administration's plans.
Where this myth came from was Ahmed Chalabi and the INC, another thing Fiasco does a better job of reporting.. On thing this book and Fiasco do is nail down the Neocon infatuation with Chalabi and all the BS he was putting out. It is plain now that virtually eveything the BUSh administration "knew" about Iraq they got from Chalabi. ALl of it was fabricated.
The Democrats have really missed a good thing, not nailing Chalabi to the Republicans--he was their creation--they set him up, even flew him in with his private army, although no one on the ground ever trusted him. VOTE REPUBLICAN--VOTE CHALABI! There's a huge atory about this waiting to be told
WHat this book makes clear is that Rummy and the Neocons thought it would be over quick--and it wasn't--that's the biggest fuckup of all--how they misled and were misled into an endless war based on Chalbi's claims.

Oneof the buiggest conservative knocks on the way the Vietam War was fought was that civilian politians were constantly meddling with the military--yet Rumsfeld has done it here in spades and fuicked it up to a fare thee well.!
I have never seen or studied a case where one civilian so dominated the Pentagon. He has shaped it to his own liking--and it has degraded it like never before. You have to retire to dissent and thats why there are so many retired generals dissrnting. Ive never heard so many retired generals trash a sitting SecO Def.
This is the hidden story of State of Denial AND Fiasco--the way Rumsfeld fucked it up and the way he's trying to get out of responsibility for it. If you didn't think Rumsfeld has to go befrore reading this book, you sure will after

On another note, you can see why Condoleeza Rice is so upset about this book--it flat out calls her the worst National Security Advisor in history--and shows you why.

This book is not as detailed as Fiasco or Cobra II but what it is important for is the inside "fly on the wall" view from inside the WH--and its not a flattering view. Woodwards books won't be rccommended on Republican websites any more but this book makes it worth it. Ive read other of his books and think this one is the best

All my ex-military friends hate Rummy. My major problem is I do not believe Rummy has learned from Iraq and is planning a war against Iran not thinking about all that could go wrong. I see him thinking about more rose petals for our troops attacking Iran.

I reccommend it, which I can't say about all of Woodwards books.
Veterans will see a lot more in it than non veterans, especially about the civilian micromanagement.
What it really is good for is the "fly in the wall" viewpoint. We really only get this from Woodward, nobody else has had the access.

would be a great addition to reviews on Amazon.com. You would have an additional, if not wider audience.

Great stuff!

Besides, this is only a partial review, dealing with the civilian micromagagement of the war. There's lots of other things to talk about in the book

He's done a heckuva job. The plan was well conceived and well implemented and Rummy is being rewarded handsomely. Get over it.....?

Sounds contrary, doesn't it?

But when you realize what the plan was from the beginning it all makes perfect sense. The plan was to introduce total chaos into Iraq.

Order is hard work, and hard to cheat with. What makes anyone think this gang wanted to do the hard work of bringing order to Iraq? It should be quite clear by now that their goal is not as stated - bring democracy - their real goal is quite the opposite. And so far, they have succeeded. Chaos rules.

Two points I wanted to make. BTW great review. This is pretty much I had put together but thanks. Fiasco and Blood Money are next on my reading list after I finish "Confessions of an Economic HitMan" and the Frank Rich book (that I just want for reference).

The 9/10/01 press conference/speech was the one in which Rummy state that there is $2.1 TRILLION of stuff missing. We know we bought it we just don't know where it is-this includes several M1A1 tanks and a huge salvage ship...somewhere. The reformation of the military post cold war was an issue that everyone knew was coming and unfortuneately Rummy got to start the ball rolling. Military types are not to found of that kind of change and Rummy had some whacked ideas on how to do it. Oh BTW there are currently 1,400 different accounting systems/software being used by the DoD, that doesn't help matters.

Wolfowitz actually testified that it wouldn't take more than two regiments to take Iraq-that is 20 or 30K in personnel depending on how you configure the regiments. They really really believed this stuff.

I don't know if it is dealt with in SoD but this is still jaw dropping to me even after all the BS they have sent out.

AMANPOUR: More than two weeks of bombing, solid intelligence, the U.S. had thrown its biggest bombs, its most sophisticated missiles, bunker busters, daisy cutters, at bin Laden, but somehow, some way, it wasn't enough.

BERGEN: The policy of using very limited number of U.S. Special Forces on the ground calling in airstrikes and a large number of Afghan ground troops worked brilliantly at overthrowing the Taliban, but at the battle of Tora Bora, it was a total disaster.

AMANPOUR (on camera): The plan was for Afghan and Pakistani soldiers to block any escape routes, but Osama bin Laden managed to slip away through the mountains. And the mission to capture or kill the al Qaeda leader failed. By most accounts, the main problem was not enough American soldiers on the ground.

BERGEN: By my calculation, there were more American journalists than American soldiers at the battle of Tora Bora, and that fact kind of speaks for itself.

BERNTSEN: In the first two or three days of December, I would write a message back to Washington, recommending the insertion of U.S. forces on the ground. I was looking for 600 to 800 Rangers, roughly a battalion. They never came.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Also hunting bin Laden in Tora Bora, then Afghan militia leader, General Mohamed Zahir (ph).

(on camera) Do you have any idea how many American soldiers were at the battle of Tora Bora?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was not more than 50, 60, I think. There was not more than that at that time.


http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0609/10/cp.02.html

but in a sense it's really all just the evidence laid bare for what people on our side of the political spectrum have seen and suspected all along.

What conclusion to reach about it...you can take the analysis further than just a kind of "optimistic" war planning that had no responsibility at its core and no real thinking about consequences as the reason the people who created this mess were sure of themselves.

The next tier up in the analysis is that Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush were, clearly, dogmatically certain throughout 2002 and 2003 that they could break every obstacle in their way as a matter of their willpower and cleverness. (They wrote off '9/11' as an aberration and a challenge to this certainty.) If you really have this ability to achieve everything through superiority of will, the ability to meet every situation you are going to be faced with in Iraq and on Capital Hill and throughout the US and the World with superior power, obviously you don't need plans and contingencies for failure. You don't even need to bother with the details, i.e. "reality", that concerns Little People.

The next tier of analysis is that Omnipotence Of The Will is one of the three central axioms of all occultisms. But the idea that this present incarnation of the Republican Party is essentially an outbreak of a political-religious occultism is not one that average Democrats have had the moral courage to take on even as an idea. Occultisms do come in two varieties, though often both are mingled- the white magic kind is all about supposed supernatural power that enhances life, and the black magic kind that is all about death and infliction of death involving a Manichaean Other. Any thoughts on how this relates to our Administration? :-)

Ummmm, they've got an extremely loose grip on reality and piss poor critical thinking skills.

Some interesting reading on what's wrong with Rumsfeld's Revolution in Military Affairs doctrine.
http://www.geocities.com/transformationunderfire/

like a corporation. As anyone that has worked in a corporation can tell you, they have.