Inside Dubya's Corral

On October 26, 2001, President George W. Bush gathered his cabinet in the White House situation room, stung by intense media speculation that US bombing raids on Afghanistan had produced little evidence of victory against the Taliban. There were many who even thought Bush had entered into a Vietnam-like quagmire. "I just want to make sure that all of us did agree on this plan, right?" Bush asked his advisors. They all nodded in assent. "Anybody have any ideas they want to put on the table?" There were none. "You know what?" Bush then told his team. "We need to be patient. We have only been at this 19 days. Be steady. Don't let the press panic us."

A new book by Bob Woodward, assistant managing editor at The Washington Post newspaper, offers an insight into the tensions that afflicted Bush's war cabinet during the initial stages of the Afghanistan war and how personal differences continue to divide the team on Iraq. Bush At War (Simon & Schuster; Pages: 376; $28) shows secretary of state Colin Powell at odds with vice-president Dick Cheney and defence secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld struggling to establish a relationship with Bush.

Best known for scooping the Watergate scandal, Woodward draws on a two-and-a-half-hour interview with Bush, conducted in the relaxed environs of his ranch at Crawford, Texas, to reconstruct the tensions in the President's team. "A president has got to be the calcium in the backbone," he said. "If I weaken, the whole team weakens. If I'm doubtful, I can assure you there will be a lot of doubt! I am here for a reason, and this is going to be how we're going to be judged."

Bush describes his drive as "visceral. Maybe it is my religion, maybe it is my.... But I feel passionate about this". Variously, he sees himself as "fiery", "impatient", "a gut player" who likes to "provoke" people around him and someone who talks, at times, by his own admission, too much in meetings.

He confesses that First Lady Laura Bush had told him to tone down his "tough guy" rhetoric on terrorism. In fact, at a point in the interview, when Bush was quoting Laura telling him, "You need to make sure your rhetoric isn't quite as harsh about killing them", she herself walked in.

"I didn't like the 'get them dead or alive'," she said.

"Why?" the President asked.

"I just didn't," she said.

"Why," the President persisted.

"It just didn't sound that appealing to me, really," she said. "I mean, I have.... Tone it down, darling."

Bush admitted he hadn't toned it down. And, Laura added, "Every once in a while, I had to say it again."

On Wednesday, September 26, just two weeks after the wtc attacks, the President surprised his cabinet, which had been debating when to begin bombing Afghanistan, by declaring: "Anybody doubt that we should start this Monday or Tuesday?"

Condoleeza Rice and Rumsfeld eventually convinced Bush that US planning was incomplete, that the bombing should not begin for another week. Bush says he was intentionally prodding his aides. "One of my jobs is to be provocative," he said. "Seriously, to provoke people into... to force decisions, and to make sure it's clear in everybody's mind where we're headed. There was a certain rhythm and flow to this, and I was beginning to get a little frustrated. It was just not coming together as quickly as we had hoped. And I was trying to force the issue without compromising safety."

Did he ever explain what he was doing?

"Of course not," Bush said. "I'm the commander—see, I don't need to explain—I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." Which perhaps explains Bush's instinct for unilateralism.

The book also illustrates vividly the extent to which Bush personalises international relations. Woodward writes that the relationship between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Bush blossomed after he heard that Putin had been given a cross by his mother. Bush recalled telling Putin: "That speaks volumes to me, Mr President. May I call you Vladimir?"

There's a little of Pakistan too in the book. During a meeting with Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf in New York, Bush denounced a New Yorker article Seymour M. Hersh had written. The article had claimed that the Pentagon had contingency plans to take out Pakistan's nuclear weapons in case the country became unstable. "Seymour Hersh is a liar," the President reportedly told the general. But if Bush likes Musharraf, his dislike for North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is palpable. "I loathe Kim Jong Il. I've got a visceral reaction to this guy because he is starving his people," he says.

Bush At War also provides an intriguing sketch of the struggle between Powell, Cheney and Rumsfeld, quoting from records of the National Security Council and other White House meetings to reconstruct the internal debate that shaped the US military action in Afghanistan and led to the decision to confront Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Cheney, with his "trademark tilted head and a sly, knowing smile", Woodward says, had trained all his life for the war against terror. It was Cheney who sounded the alarm on Saddam, reminding Americans that the proposed inspections of Iraq's weapons would not work, that they would provide a false comfort that the Iraqi dictator had been contained.

The book's portrait of Powell conveys his silent frustration at having to pretend that there was a policy consensus within the cabinet on Iraq and the Middle East. Woodward says Powell was at times put "in the icebox", a reference to those periods the White House banned him from appearing on television. The Powell of Woodward's book is an unhappy, reluctant soldier, at heart a pessimist about American power.

On August 5 this year, Bush and Powell discussed Iraq over dinner. Powell told Bush, "It's nice to say we can do it unilaterally, except you can't." The conversation persuaded Bush to seek a resolution from the United Nations over Cheney and Rumsfeld's objections.

In the President's fractious cabinet, previously unreported personal differences cited in the book appear to be at least as pronounced as the widely-known policy rifts: Cheney takes a swipe at Powell and Powell denigrates the military, and Powell and Rumsfeld "had at times been almost glaring at each other across the table" over the Afghanistan operations. Gen Richard B. Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, bypasses Rumsfeld to give to Powell and his deputy Richard L. Armitage the military information they need. Rice emerges as a backstage broker among members of Bush's war council who absorbs his frustration when deliberations or events upset him. Bush describes her as "a very thorough person, constantly mother-henning me".

Bush admits he doesn't expect everyone in his cabinet to have the same opinion. "I've grown very comfortable with them as human beings and as people that were capable of handling their responsibilities. And therefore when they give advice, I trust their judgement. Now sometimes the advice isn't always the same, in which case my job is to grind through these problems and grind through scenarios, and hopefully reach a consensus of six or seven smart people, which makes my job easy," he tells Woodward. What's easy for Bush is perhaps tragic for others. Just ask those in Iraq.

Woodward's book, however, has received its share of criticism as well.The one aspect common to all Woodward's books is that those "who cooperate tend to get starring, and often favourable, roles in his narratives," writes Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz in his online column. "He's also accused of having grown soft on the powerful, a charge that was heard after a series he co-authored last year made the Bush team look strong and decisive after 9/11."

In his review of the book, Fouad Ajami, of Johns Hopkins University, describes it as "History's first draft", and thinks Woodward's account of the first 100 days post-September 11 capture amazingly the President's restlessness and energy. But Ajami says why Woodward's sources divulge to him the deep inner workings of government shall remain a mystery of the craft. "He lives by the leak, and the leaks are here in ample supply—memos and records of National Security Council meetings, alongside Woodward's interviews with the principals."

Is the book then a carefully-calibrated PR exercise to boost Bush's image? The jury is out on this one.