Plan of Attack - Book Versus Individual Accounts

Book Versus Individual Accounts

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

• In the book, CIA director George Tenet is noted as stating the evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction was "a slam dunk." Later, Tenet is forced to admit that his intelligence was flawed when months of post-war searches turned up nothing.

• 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. There is no later published data to indicate this is the case. [unclear wording: To what doe "this is the case" refer to? Bush's concerns or Blix's concealment?

• Woodward portrays Secretary of State Colin Powell as reluctant to go to war and often at odds with other Bush administration officials. Powell has stated for the record that he was always fully supportive of the administration and its efforts to invade Iraq, although he wanted tens or hundreds of thousands more soldiers on the ground.

• General Tommy Franks calls Pentagon official Douglas Feith "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth." In his biography, American Soldier, Tommy Franks clarified the context of this phrase by stating that he was talking to his subordinates who were upset with Rumsfeld.