State of War

I finished one of the two books I bought recently - State of War by James Risen. What a marvelous book ?! Great job, bravo.

I was rushing to finish reading this book and couldn't really keep it down, while struggling hard to remember the names and connections mentioned thro' out the book :).

Since its political thriller, I'm not going to write, what I feel about it ;) instead am leaving some excerpts here.

I strongly recommend to read this book.

State of War - James Risen

"The National Security Council(NSC) at the White House, created during the Cold War to manager the enormous military, intelligence and foreign policy apparatus of the U.S. government, has been weak and dysfunctional in the Bush administration, according to many officials who have served in the administration."

"As national security advisor during Bush's first term, Condoleezza Rice had an excellent personal relationship with the president but lacked sufficient powers and authority to get crucial things done. Foreign policy was often forged by small groups in unlikely place,s including the office of the Vice President and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Rice was forced to play catch-up and to accept professional indignities, particularly at the hands of Donald Rumsfeld. Her loyalty was rewarded, however, when Bush named her Secretary of State at the start of his second term."

"In many cases, policies weren't debated at all. There never was a formal meeting of all of the president's senior advisors to debate and decide whether to invade Iraq, according to a senior administration source."

"The most fateful decision of the post invasion period – the move by American proconsul L. Paul Bremer to disband the Iraqi army – may have been made without President Bush's advance knowledge, according to a senior White House source. The well placed source said he is virtually certain that the president didn't know of decision before it was taken."

"The absence of effective management has been the defining characteristic of the Bush administration's foreign policy and has allowed radical decisions to take effect rapidly with minimal review."

"When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the CIA's original mission ended. The agency had been created in 1947 for a singular purpose, to wage war against Soviet Communism, and for generations of CIA officers all other issues had been secondary."

"Analysts today are looking at intelligence coming in and then writing what they think about it, but they have no depth of knowledge to determine whether the current intelligence is correct. There are very few people left in the intelligence community who even remember how to do basic research."

"Underneath the broad arc of global events, there is a secret history of the CIA and the Bush administration both before and especially after 9/11. Its is a cautionary tale, one that shows how the most covert tools of American national security policy have been misused. It involves domestic spying, abuse of power and outrageous operations. It is a tale that can only now begin to be told."