Reviewing “A Pretext for War” by James Bamford

Reviewer: W.P. Biro

 

         Before the book is even opened, you can deduce several things about the book: it's Leftwing, anti-Bush, and probably is filled with cracked Left-Wing clichés. In this book there are two arguments I am going to go cracked-logic hunting for- the ‘pretext’ argument and the ulterior motives arguments. I will also reveal any cracked Leftwing clichés the author pads the book with. Let the exposé on the exposé begin.

 

         ‘Pretext’ means a fabricated excuse for doing something in the absence of any real excuse. Now pertaining to Bush and Iraq, there is the added aspect ulterior motives to consider.

 

         We all know what the Left would have us believe- that Bush’s ‘pretext’ for removing Saddam were WMD’s and that the intelligence was twisted into lies by Bush, and that Bush’s ulterior motives were three- (1) spanking Saddam for trying to assassinate Daddy; (2) war profiteering; and (3) oil profiteering, and that terrorists or protecting Americans at home was not even part of the equation.

 

A.     Let’s address 'pretext' first. Going back to Bush’s original post-9/11 statement that "The President of the United States cannot put the safety of Americans in the hands of a foreign dictator"- well, that pretty much shoots the air out of the Leftwing ‘false pretext’ and 'secretive' arguments for me. Bush stated his reasoning simply and clearly right from the start.

 

         Let’s begin to tear apart this Leftwing ‘pretext’ fabrication:

 

         Is Saddam just any old dictator in this matter, like Kim Jung Il or Castro? No- Saddam’s unique place in this whole scenario is key and central.

         Saddam stands out above all others for several reasons:

(1)   Saddam’s sharing with terrorists the lust for war;

(2)   Saddam’s sharing with terrorists the lust for civilian mass-murder;

(3)   Saddam’s sharing with terrorists the desire to obtain WMD’s;

(4)   Saddam’s sharing with terrorist the active pursuing of WMD’s;

(5)   Saddam’s proximity to terrorists;

(6)   Saddam’s sharing of the terrorist’s Islamic anti-West religion;

(7)   Saddam’s sharing with terrorists the hatred of the United States;

(8)   Saddam being a primary contributor to the misery and ignorance in the Muslim World, a favorite justification of terrorists for their war on America;

(9)   Saddam being a primary contributor to the blame-shifting to the United States and non-Muslim civilizations in general for the cause of said misery and ignorance in the Muslim World;

(10)                       Saddam’s sharing with terrorists the desire to administer tyranny; (I hate Microsoft Word), 

(11)                       Saddam’s first-time around kicking out of WMD inspectors, indicating he had something to hide and they were getting annoyingly close;

(12)                       Saddam’s playing hide-and-seek with the returned WMD inspectors, indicating he still had things to hide; and hide things he could, anywhere in his deserts, far from prying gullible inspector’s eyes.

(13)                       The fact is Saddam could have been dealing with terrorists without the knowledge of Western intelligence is supported by the main theme of even this Leftwing book- weak and faulty intelligence- YET the Left likes to scream that Bush went to war despite the intelligence which said Saddam had no WMD's or any terrorist links; and this author takes Bush to task for not taking the intelligence as the entire picture and at face value; so therefore the theme of the book- faulty intelligence, contradicts the other main theme- that Bush should not have toyed with the intelligence and should have taken itat face value; to summarize: THIS BOOK HAS TWO CONTRADICTING MAIN THEMES, much like the Left. The book is another good example of the Wacky Left's complete disregard for coherent thought, due to their embrasure of the Clintonian Lying Method;

(14)                       The fact that the Left is currently practicing the Clintonian Political Method, and I quote Clinton himself: “You say what you have to say, whether it’s true or not” blows the credibility of the liberal author even before the book is opened.

 

         Considering the above points, you can see why people barf when the Left presents weak smart-aleck arguments such as "What's the US going to do now, attack all dictators"? This is good example of how the Left shoots itself in it’s own foot with weak reasoning, but you must apply some in-depth analysis, a sprinkling of common sense, and a little logical deduction to catch it. Since the Left lacks those capabilities, based on the lack of merit of their arguments, I will continue for them:

 

B.     Let’s analyze ‘war and oil profiteering’ arguments now.
First there is the Halliburton/Dick Cheney link for war profiteering, and the Bush Administration/Oil Industry link for oil profiteering. Can anything be made of it other than sophomoric Michael-Mooresque pewk? Let's analyze:
(also see my 'Point-by-Point Scoring on Michael Moore's 'Fahrenheit 9/11' film for Michael-Moore pewk)

 

         To assume the Halliburton-Cheney war profiteering argument is true, one must assume that contract awarding for the rebuilding of Iraq was not done competitively, and that Halliburton was awarded non-competitive contracts premeditatively or opportunistically by the Bush Administration. It would bear investigation but for one thing: if Bush is as stupid as the Left wants us to believe him to be, any 'Bush premeditation' argument by the Left must be thrown out. I will go with Bush being stupid (and therefore incidentally being best suited to deal with the equally stupid terrorists), and I therefore throw out the Left’s premeditation argument. Same for opportunistic, because any opportunistic move by people the Left claims are so stupid would be glaringly obvious, and would be successfully blocked by the intelligent; and since there is no evidence of either occurring, it remains a mere Leftwing conspiracy theory. So therefore one must throw that Leftwing argument out. I cannot see Bush conspiring to do anything, least of all when he has found a worthy and easily digestible 'purpose', over and above difficult issues like the economy, or the prospect of spending four obscure years of making compromises with sleazy Democrats.

 

         To assume the Bush Administration is engaging in oil profiteering from the Iraq war is a meaningless point here. As long as Bush does the job of the President and goes after these thugs and their complicits wherever they may be, he can profiteer all he wants if the opportunity arises; since it is not the basis for his actions here I have no qualm against it, and as far as I can see he isn’t. Iraq oil revenues are being used for the benefit of Iraq, much to the detriment of the insurgent’s twisted anti-US argument premise (and the Left, who are looking for anti-Bush ammunition), insurgents who as a result attack the source of those revenues just because the US is involved. Not only childish, but also selfish, much like the Left.

 

 

         This brings up two related points concerning the cracked logic and blind cynicism of the Left:

(a)   The Left’s cynical statement that the US doesn’t help anyone unless there is oil (or even money) involved is pure pathological, obsessive, and blind cynicism. There was no oil in Vietnam, Bosnia, Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, Somalia, and the dozen other good deeds the US tried to accomplish in the face of such Leftwing (read Major Media) cynicism.

(b)   The Left’s blind statement that “War is Bad” is OK out of context and in a detached idealistic way, devoid of all reality, but it is blindly erroneous in context and in the face of the way America's enemies think and behave. The context of reality can be presented with simple numbers: 500,000 children died and millions more suffered in Iraq under the economic sanctions experiment, while Saddam grew fatter; in contrast, only 5,000-10,000 Iraqis died as a result of using military force (died as a result of being placed in harm's way by the cowardly Muslims and their method of fighting from behind their own innocent, and helpless, civilians), and Saddam and his entire Nazi-based regime is gone. Let’s summarize that math for the math-challenged of the Leftwing: 5,000-10,000 (Not Bush's fault) is less than 500,000 + millions (the Left's fault); and Saddam growing fatter (due to liberalism) is worse that Saddam and his entire Stalin-modeled regime gone (due to conservatisism). Now, going purely by the numbers, it is economic sanctions that should be considered the ‘last resort’, but instead Kerry and the Leftwing establishment, to this day, and ignoring all the above numbers and results, doggedly continue to refer to the use of military force as the last resort, and cling to economic sanctions as being the preferred method. Surely the Left, whose arguments are based on Monday-morning quarterbacking, should see their folly purely on hindsight. They don't. This is a good example of the Left keeping one eye closed and the other looking in the mirror.

 

So, now with the issues cleared up, let’s read a few other reviews, crack open the book and read the covers, and see if we should waste our time with the rest of the book:

 

STATEMENTS FROM BOOK AND SUPPORTIVE REVIEWS

CRACKED LOGIC OR FALSE CLICHE REVEALED

With the neocons in power, intelligence gathering is corrupted and politicized to create the grounds for going to war with Iraq.

Bush is to be commended for making Iraq happen in the face of blind, twisted opposition, much like Roosevelt during WWII. Bush unfortunately deemed it not enough to act based simply on common sense and gut instinct (It would have been enough for me). Also using the term 'neocon' here is a blatant play to the ignorant element of the targeted Leftwing audience, because the author knows no reasonable person would be able to stand such lowbrow cliché slinging.

 

 

The alarming post-Cold War floundering of the C.I.A., N.S.A., Defense Department, and succeeding administrations in the face of burgeoning terrorist threats that culminate with the attack on 9-11. Seemingly caught flatfooted by the demise of the Soviet Union

Where does the author get off saying 'burgeoning'? No one knew it was 'burgeoning', because it wasn't 'burgeoning'. 9/11 was a long-planned attack on a symbolic date. If the author wants to pretend that the half dozen worldwide terrorists attacks in the late 90's was 'burgeoning', let him pretend. If he were saying 'burgeoning' without hindsight, fine. With it he has no more insight than you or I. As for intelligence being flatfooted: one would expect that- due to relaxing after years of strain confronting the "Evil Empire", (an Empire, by the way, that was apologized for and more highly regarded by the author's intended Leftwing audience than the US. at the time), and a weakening of all said Departments during the Clinton Presidency. The author would be more appropriate presenting a self-damnation on behalf of his intended anti-Bush/anti-War/anti-military Leftwing audience, but I don't see it, and wouldn't expect it from such an exercise in Clintonesque BS.

 

 

An incompetent and politicized intelligence community. Before 9/11, he contends,

This pretty much exonerates Bush from any criticism for not taking the intelligence at face value, and makes him look all the better for going more on common sense and gut instinct. Further, there was no active warlike policy going on before 9/11 pertaining to Iraq that would necessitate politicizing intelligence, otherwise Bush would have been there rather than in a 2nd-grade classroom on 9/11.

 

 

The inadequacy of the CIA’s clandestine service hobbled its fight against Osama bin Laden, forcing it to rely on mercenary Afghan proxies and cruise missile drive-bys

Again no apologies from the Left for being the primary cause of this. Personally I don't have anything against the reduction of said forces in the post Cold War 1990's, but to have expected the effeminized intelligence community to have foreseen who the next enemy was going to be, who which none of us predicted, and in the face of those reductions, is just plain hypocritical. It's this kind of responsibility evading that is a good example (among many) of why the Left deserves it's bad image and disdain.

 

 

The Bush administration used the attacks as a pretext for a long-planned invasion of Iraq

"Long-Planned" is used deceivingly here- everyone has a 'plan' to invade everyone else as a matter of standard military preparedness- like Canada's 'plan' for invading the US. When and where the plan is acted upon is another matter- a point that the author, in his deceptive intent, omitted here.

 

 

That these four leading hawks manipulated the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency in a desperate attempt to justify a regime change in Iraq

Again, they should be lauded, for it was a time of desperation when Osama and Saddam were running free in a blindly liberal and tolerant world. I hereby laud them.

 

 

To justify a regime change in Iraq that they had been strategizing to bring about for years.

Again, standard preparedness. No criminal act here.

 

 

Chronic blind spot in American policy circles: the failure to recognize the central role of the Palestinian cause in igniting Arab rage against the United States.

This is pure anti-American liberal-weenie apologetic bullshit. I for one don't buy this cockamamie twisted logic. First, The central causes for Arab rage against the United States are threefold: (1) the state-sponsored, blame-shifting, anti-US propaganda spewed out in every one of the tyrannical Middle Eastern states and by their power-mad backwards religious leaders, and which is concealed by the Muslim-Christian rift caused solely by Muslims. Take Al-Jazeera. That is a state-run publication, state employees staff it, and it is not journalism, it is a state-controlled anti-US hate-mongering organization. (I writhe when NPR cozies up to them in their interviews, seeming ignorant of these facts, and pretending the Al Jazeera staff are journalists.) (2) Then take the backwards anti-non-Muslim-World Medieval Mullahs who say, and I quote one: "A Muslim has a right to capture a Christian in Muslim lands and sell the Christian like a cow, or make him a slave, or even kill him." Muslim hate for the world is rooted in their current leaders who fear for their power. (3) And even more preposterous, current Muslims frequently base their hate of the West on the Crusades of the 11th century, while hypocritically ignoring the fact that Islam to this day is a religion of the 'sword'. Second- the US has every reason for supporting a modern democracy like Israel over backwards-medieval tyrannies that internally blame-shift their problems on the US like the Soviets did during their reign of terror. Do you think the US would be so one-sided if the Muslim world were less tyrannical, oppressive, was more tolerant, and actually contributed something positive to the rest of the world? Of course not! So let's look at both sides of the coin here, and not just the anti-American side that the author and his Leftwing audience like to one-eye over on us. Third, let's look at Cause and Effect: Muslim political and religious tyranny is the CAUSE; the US pro-Israel position is the EFFECT. It is not the other way around, my anti-American liberals. The US has been pressuring the Muslim world to grow out of its tyrannical state; therefore any Muslim hate for the US is doubly unjustified.

 

 

Offers new insights into how the Sept. 11 hijackings occurred, while also showing how terribly ill-equipped and unprepared our defense systems were to deal with these kinds of attacks

A bunch of obvious hindsight’s sprinkled with liberal lard. Anyone could see that the US was not prepared. You don't need to spend another $24 on this book to figure that out. Incidentally, who hacked away at US defense systems? The author and his Leftwing audience in favor of destructive 'free money' communism. Who would have been the first to protest if the US had premptively implemented said defense systems? The author and his Leftwing audience. No one in the world expected such a crime to occur, least of all our backwards-looking liberal friends, and to try to prevent it would have taken Draconian measures of the like the Leftwing would have cried the loudest over. This double posturing is a good example of simple Leftwing duplicity- they complain if you don't and complain if you do.

 

 

Bamford notes that two Air National Guard jets were scramble-ready and perhaps could have intercepted at least one of the suicide airliners, yet were assigned that day to unarmed bomb practice

More Leftwing duplicity flip-flopping bullshit. They'd cry if Bush did and cry that Bush didn't. Imagine a US fighter plane shooting down a highjacked American passenger jet before it could be determined if it were simply going to land safely somewhere to bargain for the hostages! Who would have cried 'Bush is a murderer' the loudest? You guessed it- our two-faced Leftwing friends; and here the author has the gall to criticize Bush for NOT shooting down the passenger jet when they are so anti-military! Appalling and galling Leftwing logic. No wonder they say the Left is loony and despicable. The argument put forth by the author here, considering what the Left stands for, is a good example of both.

 

 

On September 11, 2001, the entire United States mainland was protected by just fourteen planes spread out over seven bases

And if Gore were elected, that number would have been seven, due to Gore running the nation on Leftwing popularity polls. Again, the Left putting forth arguments that contradict their basic tenets. Where's the platonic barf bag? I need one over this.

 

 

For example, CIA director George Tenet received no word until well after the second aircraft had crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center.

I see nothing wrong here- since most people considered the first aircraft strike to be more an accident, or an individual act of bezerkery, or an isolated single terrorist incident at the most, and least of all a military matter, considering how terrorists had been dealt with in a liberally judicial fashion for the past 30 years, preferring police and judges for infantry and occupation.

 

 

The top military commanders were just as out of touch. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Henry Shelton, was en route to Europe, and his deputy, Gen. Richard Myers, was on Capitol Hill.

Harping on the same pointless fact. There is nothing wrong with generals being out of touch with what for the past 30 years has been a police matter. In fact, the point the author is making is that Bush should be damned for not having a crystal ball! How ludicrous can the Left get? Maybe I shouldn’t ask that...

 

 

Bamford paints a vivid picture of the leadership of the free world bracing for an apocalypse.

I see nothing out of the ordinary here regarding politicians saving their own skins. But to the contrary it was Bush's firm post-9/11 leadership that helped many weather the storm. Ask a surviving New York City Firefighter, for example; and as far as the apocalypse, it was not that far-fetched a notion, and still isn't. Only deluded liberals like the author and his intended audience could pretend it couldn't happen.

 

 

Alec Station, the secret CIA unit dedicated solely to tracking bin Laden and al Qaeda. Bamford effectively makes the case that the group, constantly underfunded and understaffed, made little difference.

And the Left complains that Bush acted without the firm confirmation of intelligence corroboration. How typically hypocritical of the Left when here they state that the intelligence was faulty to begin with! And where does the author get off saying things like 'underfunded' and 'understaffed'? Compared to what? In light of what? Hindsight? Go fish.

 

 

For Bamford, though, the crowning scandal was the long-incubating plan to force Saddam Hussein out of power by military force

If this is all Bamford has, his book is less than worthless, it's an annoyance and an insult to anyone with an ounce of reasoning capacity. (See above why every country has numerous such 'plans').

 

 

Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith and other key members of this war faction -- nicknamed the Vulcans -- had long been laying the groundwork for an invasion of Iraq.

And they would have forever sat on it if it weren't for the 9/11 crimes and like threats being issued, or the declaration of war on the US by Al Qaeda and numerous Muslim Mullah. As for 'Vulcans', this label in poetic justification plays against the author, whose own logic is utterly cracked, and can be revealed as such so easily, even by a bumpkin like me, with a modicum of effort.

 

 

Underline the depth of the administration's Iraq fixation

An appropriate fixation- because without Saddam's WMD's the terrorists are contained to sparse, isolated, small-time attacks, and cannot annihilate entire population centers in one blow. Update: General Tommy Franks, Commander of the Iraq War Forces, just said Bush did not mention Iraq to him until well into December, and that Bush was after Osama in Afghanistan, which refutes this liberal author's and the entire Leftwing's bogus claims of Bush premeditation.

 

 

Bamford traces the personal relations among the key players spanning several decades.

Yawn.

 

 

Again he adds some interesting bits to the existing record: e.g., the Pentagon's distrust of the CIA's intelligence; internal turf wars among the CIA, the Pentagon, the State Department and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney over what kind of intelligence was used in planning for Iraq; and the Pentagon's establishment of separate intelligence shops to counter the CIA and DIA.

Now this is the best part of the book. Hardly anti-Bush. Mostly establishment-bureaucracy critical, an establishment-bureaucracy that Bush inherited and had to live with. Again, hardly Bush-damning. The book remains an exercise in hindsight, and considering the fluidity of reality, of no practical value for the future.

 

 

Who drafted the basic outlines of Bush's plan to oust Saddam, including the doctrine of preemption, back in the mid-1990s, when they were advising Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu rejected the plan

This makes no sense at all. What does Bamford mean- that the US wanted Israel IN on a pre-emptive Iraq strike, thereby antagonizing the entire Muslim world? This is rediculousnisery as only the Leftwing can concoct it, and as only the Leftwing can swallow it. Or is the author saying the US wanted Israel's blessing? This makes Israel look good, and the Arab world has no right to hate them or their US supporters (and, by the way, who can find fault with the US supporting a modern democracy over medieval tyrannies? Not I.

 

 

Together with Bush's personal determination to repay Saddam for his attempt to kill Bush's father, were instrumental in America's decision to go to war.

I knew such a flimsy book would eventually get to this flimsy psychiatric side-accusation. If Osama provided Bush with a perfect opportunity for personal revenge against an acknowledge blight in the world, that's not Bush's fault. So why didn't Bush just kill Saddam and be done with it? As a by note, as for Saddam's chances in court, it is said that if Saddam hadn't been such a murdering sadist on the side, he only had to point to the tactics of the present insurgents to beat his rap, along with the theory that mercy to the foe and discretion for the lives of the innocent are afforded to one in direct proportion to one's strength compared to the foe's; this can be seen in nature as well as the relative actions of the US and terrorists. Big=merciful, small=ruthless. Rule of nature. Therefore since Saddam ruled from a position of Sunni weakness relative to the Shiites and Kurds combined, he could not afford much mercy to the enemies (who he can now show were equally tyrannical, by the way) who hit then run and hide among their civilians, thereby endangering their civilians, thereby being responsible for their deaths and not Saddam; and Saddam could not afford much discretion to the enemy civilians being hidden among, not having the strength in numbers in proportion to his foe. Too bad for Saddam he took the path of 'rule by murder'. He can only try to show it was murder or be murdered. Rule as a tyrant or be ruled by tyrants. He can easily show the latter. He has a much harder case showing the former.

 

 

and the New York Times is reviewing its reporting on WMD, publicly admitting it should have been more skeptical of some of its sources.

Wait a minute, the Left's favorite Mantra is "Bush got us into a war on his LIES!” Now here this book reveals that there WAS intelligence pointing to WMD's. To put it clearly Bush did not lie; the Left has been lying. This revelation damns the Left for it's false Mantra (one of many, I might point out, like "Bush stole the election"
(see my analysis 'The 2000 Presidential Election- Are Democrats Telling Us the Truth?')
or "Bush tax cuts are for the rich" or "The economy is bad" or "The Kyoto treaty was practical" or "The US should not have gone into Iraq" or "We're for making every vote count!" (except conservative- see '2000' link above for Democrat misdeeds In 2000 Florida election (among other states)).
This may help you see liberal duplicity, their Clintonesque policy of lying, and the illogic of the Left. It will not help you see the other self-destructive aspects of being or voting Democrat in the next election. (Democrats have a good idealistic energy and environmental policies, but buying votes with 'free money' kills all their positives.)

 

 

The Bush administration has co-opted the intelligence community for its own political ends

After 9/11, the only 'political ends' Bush had were that of performing the duties of the Office of the Presidency, primarily that of defending US citizens from further direct and massive attacks, both openly sought by the said US enemies. You can attack him for anything beyond that, but so far any hypothetical secret and yet unproven off the job deals or profiteering hasn't obstructed him from doing his job as Commander in Chief.

 

 

The Bush administration has co-opted the intelligence community for its own political ends and at the expense of American security.

This last part is pure opinion, guesswork, begging the question, and wishful thinking on the part of the Democratic Party, and wrong at that. Terrorists outright said they prefer weak targets, such as a Kerry America would present. Frankly, myself, I would put terrorism down at about 20 on the war list- breast cancer for example kills more Americans than terrorists. Let's declare an $87 billion dollar war on that. If certain blacks had their way, all the money would go to their lazy butts instead, like their con-game during the NASA moon program in the 60's- "damn human progress- give my worthless butt da money, sucka!”

See my "Bush's Missed Speech to the NAACP: 'Wake Up, Rise Up'"

 

 

Bamford makes the case that the Bush administration's Middle East policy decisions, from overthrowing Saddam to ignoring the situation of the Palestinians, are driven by long-held beliefs and goals of an elite group of conservatives inside and outside of government.

First, it is Arafat and Hezbullah who impede the Palestinian situation, and the US has not ignored the Palestinians. By the way, how do you think Arafat and fiends, I mean friends, treated Colin Powell, a Christian black man? Case closed. Second, I should add 'elected' conservatives, conveniently omitted by this supportive review. And the Left should not damn the word 'elite', since it pervades their own ranks in insidious ways, like the policy of keeping minorities down by keeping them on government dependence. It get's Democrats votes, reduces educated competition, appeases the rabble, but 'free money' does not do anyone any good, it dampens initiative.

 

 

Refusal to acknowledge the central role of the Palestinian cause in igniting Arab rage against the United States

Bunk- see above.

 

 

Compounding the errors, the Bush administration's immediate response to 9/11 was to call for an attack on Iraq

I can't condemn Bush on his immediate responses, but on his actual actions. He instead went after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, then set out to remove Al Qaeda's most immediate link to the big-time in regards to civilian mass murder. Adding to the author's argumentative non-credibility is the fact that if Saddam had left Iraq Bush would never have gone there in first place, and would have still been reading books to minority second graders.

 

 

For the preemptive war that has ultimately left the United States more vulnerable to terrorism.

Again Leftwing wishful thinking and begging the question, the premise of which I do not agree one bit, knowing the mind of the terrorist, and considering the terrorist's cowardly penchant for being emboldened by inaction and weak responses, of which the Leftwing is a master at.
(also see my 'Contributed Thoughts to the War on Terrorist Thinking')

 

 

Exposé of the most secretive administration in history

Bush was 'up front' many times on his rationale for the decisions he made. The Left just wasn't listening, and never has been, being too wrapped up in their own twisted ideas; further, and more importantly, just what kind of data does the Left use in arriving at this conclusion? I'd like to see the comparative studies, but I know there are none, and that the author is spewing out Leftwing clichés, again playing to the ignorant element of his Leftwing audience.

 

 

A PRETEXT FOR WAR explains why American intelligence agencies failed to predict and prevent the disaster of 9/11

Any idiot Monday-morning quarterback can deduce why, and does not need such blind Leftwing-aimed drivel-books like this to arrive at such a simple and obvious deduction- post-cold war reductions, and the a lack of any significant military foe (automobile deaths kill many more Americans that terrorists can without WMD's) caused the intelligence community to go on vacation. The author does not dare offer conjecture on how Gore and the Democrats would have responded after 9/11 (a 9/11 which we know would have occurred no matter who was President) or how much weaker the intelligence and military community would have been under Gore, making the Us blind and unable to back anything up with real force. We know Gore and the Democrats would continue pursuing the many-times-more-deadly-than-war and ineffective economic sanctions, as well as the ineffective and inappropriate police/judicial policy in combating state-sponsored terrorist organizations, and would have bowed, like Kerry will, to so-called 'friends' who have no interest in the good of the US, foreign politicians who will squeeze the blood out of Kerry and the Heinz Democrats like a ketchup bottle.

 

 

and lays bare the Bush administration's role in formulating specious justifications for the pre-emptive war on Iraq

Again for which Bush will be lauded in history.

 

 

He shows that the Bush administration was, from its inception, more interested in pursuing a dubious agenda in Iraq than hunting terrorists like Osama bin Laden

There's nothing dubious between democracy and a tyrant to anyone other than a mixed-up liberal; and the author's emphasis on 'hunting for Osama' typifies the Left's blindness that present terrorism is State Sponsored and is therefore way beyond 'hunting', liberals are sorrowfully still in a 'police action' mentality, ignoring the fact it is entire nations behind the terrorists. Bush interested in Iraq? I can't fault Bush for his interests. And again, if it weren't for Osama and Saddam's egomaniacal stubbornness, Bush would have still been visiting 2nd-grade classrooms rather than being in Iraq, a fact the Left deceptively omits in its aimless, self-contradictory anti-Bush argumenterings.

 

 

Packed with detailed proof of incompetence, deception, and misinformation on the part of the government officials

This has been said since the first written word. This is not the first time in history politicians have been labeled as such, and unfortunately won't be the last. In fact it's a prerequisite for getting into politics in the first place. Have you ever considered getting into politics? What was your first thought? Power? Fortune? Fame? Unfortunately, yes. How about if you're already making a living at it? Keeping your job? Yes. Public service is a side annoyance in the mentality of the political, and that won't change for a long time. A big YAWN for an aimless proofs that can be universally found in any large administration, and any large organization for that matter, be it government or corporate.

 

 

An unprecedented, utterly convincing exposé of the most secretive administration in history

Poppycock. Just another false liberal cliché. See above.

 

                       So, in conclusion, is this book worth purchasing? Only if you enjoy hunting for and taking to task cracked logic and flimsy clichés in purported intellectual works of such soft sciences like I do.