Book Home Books Information Plan of Attack

Plan of Attack

Plan of Attack (ISBN 074325547X) is a 2004 book by Washington Post investigative reporter Bob Woodward billed as "a behind-the-scenes account of how and why President Bush decided to go to war against Iraq"

The book's chief contention, which provides the rationale for its title, is that President Bush planned all along to remove Saddam Hussein from power by force, rather than making any serious effort to use diplomacy or other means. The book describes White House deliberations implying that if Saddam were removed from power without a military invasion, Iraq would need a foreign-implemented regime change.

As in Bush at War, Woodward gives a generally positive view of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) special operations. While in Bush at War he presents the CIA's cooperation with the Northern Alliance.

Positive references to Plan of Attack appear on both the Bush / Cheney 2004 and Kerry / Edwards 2004 campaign websites. It presents the White House as focused and strongly led, but some accounts of decisions by key administration officials sharply differ from those officials' accounts. Others dispute this.

Woodward says Bush decided that the US would invade Iraq on January 11, 2003. Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice say the decision was much later - not until March.

Woodward paints Bush as concerned that the United Nations (U.N.) weapons inspectors in Iraq were cheating or being cheated. In particular, he reports that Hans Blix was concealing some of his findings.

"Sensitive intelligence coverage on U.N. inspections chief Hans Blix indicated that he was not reporting everything and not doing all the things he maintained he was doing. Some in Bush's war Cabinet believed Blix was a liar."
Bush asks his national security advisor her opinion:

"[Rice] said, "Credibility should never drive you to do something you shouldn't do." But this was much bigger, she advised, something that should be done. "To let this threat in this part of the world play volleyball with the international community this way will come back to haunt us someday. That is the reason to do it."

Woodward paints Secretary of State Colin Powell as reluctant to go to war and often at odds with other Bush administration officials. Powell has said that he was always fully supportive of the administration and its efforts to invade Iraq.