PressEthic

Iraq violence and deaths are worse than the White House has acknowledged, and the situation will only get worse in the next year 2007, according to celebrated Washington Post journalist and author Bob Woodward.

Woodward will release his third book on the Bush administration, "State of Denial," next week. Journalists are drooling for the new material. Reviews and reports on his comments aired on "60 Minutes" are splashed across the pages of newspapers across the country, including a front-page New York Times article. Maybe journalists are excited because he is finally doing some muckracking on the Administration. According to the Times, "Mr. Woodward’s first two books about the Bush administration, 'Bush at War' and 'Plan of Attack,' portrayed a president firmly in command and a loyal, well-run team responding to a surprise attack and the retaliation that followed. As its title indicates, 'State of Denial' follows a very different storyline, of an administration that seemed to have only a foggy notion that early military success in Iraq had given way to resentment of the occupiers."

Through interviews with top officials in the administration, Woodward concluded that U.S. troops and their allies are being attacked, on average, every 15 minutes.

"It's getting to the point now where there are eight, 900 attacks a week. That's more than a hundred a day. That is four an hour attacking our forces," Woodward said.

"The truth is that the assessment by intelligence experts is that next year, 2007, is going to get worse and, in public, you have the president and you have the Pentagon1/8saying 3/8, 'Oh, no, things are going to get better.'"

He also attacks a long-time enemy since the Nixon administration, when Woodward made a name for himself. Woodward claims that former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has been meeting with Bush and Cheney about the Iraq situation.

From an AP article:

"Now what's Kissinger's advice?" Woodward said. "In Iraq, he declared very simply, 'Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy.' "This is so fascinating. Kissinger's fighting the Vietnam War again because, in his view, the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will."

According to the Times article, "the book includes lengthy verbatim quotations from conversations and describes what senior officials are thinking at various times, without identifying the sources for the information ... Some of those interviewed, including Mr. Rumsfeld, are identified by name, but neither Mr. Bush nor Vice President Dick Cheney agreed to be interviewed, the book says."

Journalists are so trustful of Woodward who is, "known for his access to high-level officials" that they don't second-guess his anonymous sources. It would've been nice for the Times to do their own reporting to back up his claims, or even get a dissenting view from an official, like the AP story did.

I'm also not sure if Woodward is saying anything new, or even unexpected. He gave us quotes from anonymous officials finally saying something we've been thinking all along. But if they really wanted to expose Bush and make a change, they would've allowed Woodward to use their real names and got down the business of approaching Bush about his mistakes in Iraq. Hopefully, with Woodward's book, more officials will come forward about Bush's denial, or at least start a discussion. Unfortunately, I have a feeling Bush wouldn't be willing to listen.