Bob Woodward Responds "The British Memo"

[kpete]

Bob Woodward Replies
I just posted the below in my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

On March 31, I posted a piece that compared two accounts of a January 31, 2003 meeting between George W. Bush and Tony Blair. During this Oval Office session, the American president and the British prime minister discussed various war-related subjects six weeks before the invasion of Iraq. One account was the description of the meeting in Bob Woodward's best-selling book, Plan of Attack. The other was a recently disclosed secret memorandum written by a Blair aide who attended the meeting. The memo, I noted, showed that Woodward's insider source(s) who had told him about this conversation had "left out the best and most important stuff." I wrote, "This goes to show that Woodward is only as good as his sources and that those insiders are not always so good when it comes to disclosing the real story." After the article was posted, Woodward called to complain (passionately) that the piece was "immensely dishonest" and "unfair." He urged me to reconsider what I had written. He demanded an apology. I offered him as much space as he would like for a response, and he accepted that invitation. Below is his reply--and mine to his.

To David Corn:
(snippet from his response)
....................

I want to make two more points. What was the Bush-Blair meeting of Jan. 31, 2003 really about? It was about political survival--Tony Blair's political survival. He was going to face a vote of confidence in the House Commons at some point (he did six weeks later) and he needed a second UN resolution to prove he had not given up on diplomacy. Bush agreed to try for the second resolution which was soon abandoned, but he was so worried that Blair's government would fall that on Mar. 9, 2003--ten days before the start of the war--he phoned Blair and offered to let Britain drop out of the coalition and not send combat troops (p. 338). As I said to you on the phone, I think you are naive about the political stakes--those were the issues for the leaders and this is my focus in reporting the meeting because it was their focus. Bush had already decided on war, Blair knew it, and even a casual reader of Plan of Attack would have known it.
..............

David Corn (snippet from his response to Woodward)

Had I noted that Woodward's book made clear that Bush had decided on war before January 31, 2003, there still would have been a story here. The Manning memo indicates that the United States has a president who considered resorting to subterfuge to justify a war. Woodward's account does not contain this information. And I assume its absence is due to the reluctance of Woodward's insider sources to share with him the full truth. Next time Woodward interviews Bush, he might want to ask the president why Bush did not tell him about the provocation proposal when the two discussed the January 31, 2003 meeting.

more at:
http://www.davidcorn.com/archives/2006/04/bob_woodward_re.php
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?pid=73408

[BootinUp]

1. When did Woodward turn to the darkside

anyways.

[blm]

6. Woodward was PUT in place for Watergate because the BFEE needed Nixon to

go down before he took them all with him. Nixon was getting too paranoid to control.

[htuttle]

2. Woodward is an ONI tool

I suspect he always has been.

[leveymg]

5. Do you think ONI wants Bush in or out, at this point?

I was convinced that the JCS wanted to get rid of Bush-Cheney ob account of the disaster in Iraq and the clear case of espionage and treason by some WHIG and DoD civilian appointees, particularly the Iran specialists. The Plame and Larry Franklin prosecutions seemed to be an effort to neutralize the White House neocons, at the very least, and prevent the start of another war on false pretenses.

With the delay in indicting Rove, Hadley and Cheney in the Plame prosecution and the renewed efforts toward confrontation with Iran, I sense a hesitancy to deliver a coup d'grace.

I think this is a very dangerous time. I can see everything being sacrificed in the name of war with Iran.

[Chiyo-chichi]

3. the US has a pres. who considered resorting to subterfuge to justify a war

Damn straight. That is the point. There IS still a story here.

[peacetalksforall]

4. You know, he and PNAC have caused me not to believe anything. I

wonder if the entire Watergate Deep Throat stuff was all subterfuge for certain Republicans who wanted to dump Nixon. If it weren't for Bernstein, I would go all the way believing this. There is absolutely nothing that is trustworthy coming from Woodward and the people he works for. We were hoodwinked for decades by thinking he worked for the Washington Post and could live up to his reputation as an investigative reporter. In the end, we find he is and has been a tool.

I often wonder about the hard working Americans who fund and funded their kids education to become journalists and paper, mag, radio, tv news directors to end up as political partisan manipulators or court jesters.

Ethical America doesn't exist except in the heart and habits of certain little people.

[BooScout]

7. I call Bullshit.......

At that time Blair had 180 vote majority in the House of Commons. It would take every single Tory and all the other parties, plus 100 Labour MPs to vote him out.