THE WAR WITHIN
“Bob Woodward is the latest to remind us that it is presidents, not their understudies, who shape the destiny of nations.”
Fouad Ajami
The Wall Street Journal
The War Within takes readers deep inside the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq. Based on extensive interviews with participants, contemporaneous notes and secret documents, the book traces the internal debates, tensions and critical turning points in the Iraq War during an extraordinary two-year period.
Reviews:
“This is the stuff of history . . . wonderfully illuminating, and cumulatively these books may be the best record we will ever get of the events they cover . . . They stand as the fullest story yet of the Bush presidency and of the war that is likely to be its most important legacy.”
Jill Abramson, The New York Times Book Review
“In important ways the book recalls David Halberstam’s iconic The Best and the Brightest… The War Within makes its case quietly and persuasively.”
Josiah Bunting III, The Washington Post
“…A damning conclusion about the presidency of George W. Bush. … It’s a picture of an administration riven by internal conflicts…an administration in which the advice of experts was frequently ignored or dismissed, traditional policy-making channels were routinely circumvented, policy often took a backseat to electoral politics, accountability was repeatedly evaded, and few advisers dared speak truth to power.…”
Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“Brilliantly reported … A stunning series of on-the-record interviews.”
Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times
“…[L]ike reading raw transcripts of documents and interviews from a sensational murder trial: you know what happens, and you know who the victim and the perpetrator are. But to read their actual words is chilling. It’s the In Cold Blood of national security journalism.”
Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation
“…[S]hows how the cross-currents of domestic politics and a deteriorating war buffeted a tiring president before his surge of troops at the start of 2007…”
Mike Allen, Politico
