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              White House spied on Iraq leaders, says Bob Woodward book
Friday, September 5th, 2008
By Haroon Siddique | The Bush administration has spied on the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, and other senior figures in his government, the Washington Post reported today. The claim is one of many in a new book by the paper’s associate editor Bob Woodward, who with Carl Bernstein uncovered the Watergate scandal that led to Richard Nixon’s resignation. The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 is based on more than 150 interviews with key figures in the Iraq war as well two interviews with the president himself. The books paints a picture of Bush often at loggerheads with his military advisers and other officials. Woodward says groundbreaking surveillance techniques – and not the much-trumpeted surge by 30,000 additional troops - were the main reason for the reduction in violence in Iraq over the past 16 months. In 2006, Bush maintained publicly that US forces were winning, while privately believing the strategy of training Iraq security forces and transferring responsibility to the new government was failing, according to the Post. Woodward says the president lost confidence in General George Casey, then the commander of coalition forces in Iraq, and General John Abizaid, who was the head of US central command. In October 2006 Bush asked his national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, to carry out a review of the Iraq war. But the report ignored the military and was kept secret for fear of jeopardising the Republican party’s popularity in the mid-term congressional elections, the book says. The Pentagon reluctantly agreed to a troop surge of two brigades, but the White House decided on five. Asked how this decision was reached, Bush told Woodward: “Okay, I don’t know this. I’m not in these meetings, you’ll be happy to hear, because I got other things to do.” Woodward says Casey described the 2007 surge as a “troop sump”. Abizaid and the then defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, also opposed the scale of the operation, and the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, had reservations. Casey told a colleague that Bush reflected the “radical wing of the Republican party that kept saying, ‘Kill the bastards! Kill the bastards! And you’ll succeed’”, writes Woodward. The book says joint chiefs of staff were in near revolt in late 2006, with Admiral Michael Mullen, then serving as chief of naval operations, fearing the military would “take the fall” for failure in Iraq. Woodward does credit the influx of troops with contributing to the fall in violence. But he cites as important factors the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s reining-in of his powerful Mahdi army, the so-called Anbar Awakening - in which Sunni fighters allied with US forces to fight against al-Qaida - and covert operations targeting key individuals in extremist groups. While Bush developed a close relationship with Maliki, US officials feared the impact the surveillance of the prime minister would have, according to Woodward. “We know everything he says,” a source told Woodward. The book is Woodward’s fourth on the Bush administration and its actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Have Your Say: White House spied on Iraq leaders, says Bob Woodward book Please read our posting guidelines before posting. Alternatively you can discuss this report here. One Response to “White House spied on Iraq leaders, says Bob Woodward book”
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As an undergraduate political science major at Michigan State University in the mid-1960s, my academic advisor was Dr. Wesley R. Fishel. Not only was he my academic advisor, he was also the academic advisor to Ngo Dinh Diem when he studied at MSU. Of course, Diem later headed the puppet government of South Vietnam. And, Fishel was our State Department’s strongest link to Diem. He was always flying out of Andrews AFB, leaving instruction of his classes to others.
When Nguyen Van Thieu took over, on at least one occasion, Dr. Fishel started to blurt something about our CIA’s assassination of Diem, but caught himself short, saying that it was classified.
From what is known today, Diem showed a bit too much independence for the leader of our puppet government in Vietnam, and our CIA helped the coup that assassinated him.
Of course, the neocons want a puppet government in Iraq, the same way that they wanted one in Vietnam.
It’s not a question of if — but when — Nouri al-Maliki is taken out for showing too much independence — you can be sure of our own CIA’s involvement.