Plan of attack
Account of how and why President George W. Bush, his war council, and allies launched a preemptive attack to topple Saddam Hussein and occupy Iraq. Based on interviews with 75 key participants and more than three and a half hours of exclusive interviews with President Bush.
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3recommend
6mentions
6people
2009–2022years
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What Hacker News says
- I'll drop references which might interest some of you if you are interested in learning more about the subject:
Plan of Attack, by Bob Woodward
Decision Points, by George W. Bush
No Higher Honour, by Condoleezza Rice
Known and Unknown, by Donald Rumsfeld
At the Center of the Storm, by George Tenet
In My Time, by Dick Cheney
Yes, I know what you're thinking, but it's a good thing to be able to view a situation from another person's point of view, no matter your personal opinion of them.
- Which experts are you referring to? Pundits on tv? The president? The head of the CIA? The president had an agenda that he wanted to pursue since 2001. Him and his staff were selective in what information they believed. The director of the CIA unfortunately told the president what he wanted to hear. Pundits on television took them at their word.
There were people who said there was no evidence that Iraq had WMD, and they were ignored. This is not a case of "they did the best with the information they had." This is a case of "they made their conclusions first, and looked for the evidence second." Books that touch on this subject: "Plan of Attack" and "State of Denial" by Bob Woodward; "Legacy of Ashes" by Tim Weiner; "Your Government Failed You" by Richard Clarke.
- You aren't talking about Journalism you're talking about research and you can already hire a researcher.
Journalism isn't about finding answers it's about finding truth. Despite what people think of him now Richard Nixon was a tremendously popular President (the electoral vote count in '72 was 570 to 17) so most were not asking for him to be exposed. But Journalists did and it was exactly what they should have been doing.
The problem with Journalism now is it's been corrupted. Now we have Liberal MSNBC and Conservative Fox News and they both are just spin machines for their side's agenda. That's where tech comes in because people simply don't trust Journalists anymore so they are looking more and more to other sources.
As for saving journalism I don't think true journalism needs it. My favorite modern example of true journalism is Bob Woodward's book "Plan of Attack". During the 2004 election it was recommeneded by both the Bush and Kerry camps and it was a best seller because of it.
Because truth appeals to everyone.
- >> ultimately failing to achieve anything other than even more instability in the middle east
> Hate to break it to you but this was the exact desired outcome.
That's not actually true. It doesn't seem like it was deeply cynical and nefarious like that; it was more of an overly-simplistic moral crusade:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/books/review/to-start-a-w...:
> In “Plan of Attack,” Bob Woodward described Bush as being beset by doubt about the case for war, and suggested that Tenet’s affirmation had been “very important.” Draper disagrees. The issue wasn’t the evidence. It was the spin: “Tenet’s words were ‘important’ only because they helped remove any doubt as to whether the C.I.A. could mount a solid case.” Bush’s thinking was as clear as it was simplistic. Saddam was a monster. It would be a bad idea to leave him in power. According to Draper, Bush’s “increasingly bellicose rhetoric reflected a wartime president who was no longer tethered to anything other than his own convictions.”
> In his 2005 Inaugural Address, Bush tried to turn neoconservative ideology into official doctrine: “It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.” It wasn’t until the shellacking that the Republicans endured in the 2006 midterm elections that Bush began to abandon his fantasies about spreading peace, love and understanding across the Middle East. He fired Rumsfeld and shunted Cheney to the side.
- It's extremely unlikely most of the top people involved didn't know. See: https://theintercept.com/2016/02/18/trump-is-right-bush-lied...
There's also a link in there to a section of Bob Woodward's book Plan of Attack claiming Powell knowingly altered evidence for his UN presentation.
- I think that's a reasonable analysis, but incomplete. If a nation state occupies territory that does not belong to them (for whatever, possibly well-founded reasons), and therefore controls, by force, the lives and freedoms of the inhabitants, then I would argue that along with the authority that force gives them, comes a 'duty of care' towards the civilians of the occupied territory, at least equal of that owed their own citizens.
[EDIT] ----- To quote Colin Powell, former US Secretary of State regarding the possible invasion of Iraq: 'You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people,' he told the president. 'You will own all their hopes, aspirations, and problems. You'll own it all.' Privately, Powell and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage called this the Pottery Barn rule: You break it, you own it.[1] ------------
I agree that a parent has a greater duty of care to protect their own children than someone else's children. However, to extend your analogy, if I have someone else's children staying at my house, then I am literally 'in loco parentis' ("in place of a parent") for those children. I would argue that I have a duty of care to those children and their parents that is AT LEAST equal to my duty of care towards my own children.
A better analogy might be that of a school. Maybe the kids don't want to be there, maybe their parents don't want them in that school either, but once the children are there with the teachers 'in loco parentis', surely it is unacceptable for teachers in that school to take actions that make it safer for the teachers by making it less safe for the children? For example, would it be ok for the teachers to carry tasers to protect themselves in case a child attempts to assault them?
[1] Woodward, Bob (2004). Plan of Attack. p. 150.
