Review Risen, James, State of War, The Secret History of the
CIA and the Bush Administration,
New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: Free Press, 2006
James Risen of the New York Times focused upon the war on
terror in State of War, The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush
Administration. The book covers the fight against terrorism after 9/11, the
Iraq war, and spying on Iran and its nuclear program to name a few. Risen argued
that more things went wrong then right for the Bush presidency, and that there
were abuses along the way.
The first topic was the war on terror, which Risen believed
led to a vast expansion of the power of the state, and major problems. The Bush
administration authorized putting terrorism suspects in Guantanamo Bay and
torturing them via enhanced interrogations as well as tapping into the phone
system and internet to monitor the conversations of Americans. The U.S. also
had issues with its allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia that were uncooperative in
taking on Al Qaeda and financed terrorism. Finally, the administration did not
believe in nation building in Afghanistan and it lost troops and resources when
the Iraq War started in 2003. That meant the U.S. was stuck there in a forever
war not being able to lose, but not being able to win either. Risen argued that
Guantanamo, enhanced interrogations and monitoring Americans were all abuses of
power. In the aftermath of 9/11, the administration was so set on countering
another attack and taking a tough stance, that it comprised U.S. ideals about
how to act domestically and internationally.
Cracking into Iran’s nuclear program was another dilemma for
the CIA. Unfortunately, it might have actually helped Tehran in a misguided
intelligence operation. The Agency used a Russian scientist who had defected to
the U.S. to sell tainted nuclear plans to the Iranians. The CIA was hoping that
they could determine how far the Iranians had gotten with this scheme. The
problem was the Russian found the flaws the CIA planted in the plans, and that
meant the Iranians could probably do so as well, and once they’d eliminated them
Tehran would have workable directions on building a nuclear device. On top of
that, a CIA officer screwed up and sent a list of all the U.S. agents in Iran
to a double agent, which led to mass arrests. With the failure of the plans and
the loss of assets the CIA turned to the Mujahadeen-e Khalq for intelligence on
Iran, which was not only a questionable source but listed as a terrorist
organization in America. Risen painted this as an unmitigated failure, and
another part of his thesis that the CIA has often failed in its operations. His
first two examples read like a comedy of errors with the U.S. perhaps giving
Iran plans for a bomb and exposing all of their agents. It raised serious
questions about the management of the agency that it could make such mistakes.
The heart of State of War deals with the invasion of Iraq,
but its coverage was up and down. Like too many U.S. books on the war, it
focuses upon the neoconservatives as the cause for the conflict. It argues that
they were empowered by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President
Dick Cheney. Then Risen got caught up in the blame game between the CIA and
White House over the pre-war Iraq intelligence. He obviously relied on a lot of
Agency sources who told him that the CIA was against the war with only a small
minority promoting it. They also said that the Agency never believed in an
Iraq-Al Qaeda connection or the defectors provided by the Iraqi National
Congress (INC) that were promoted by the neoconservatives. Compare that however
to an entire chapter on a CIA program to contact Iraqi-Americans to talk to
their relatives back in Iraq that were working on WMD. All of them reported
that Iraq no longer had WMD programs, but the Agency didn’t believe them and
the reports were never widely circulated. There are all kinds of contradictions
with this. First, the neoconservatives in the administration were all deputies
like Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith at the Pentagon. They did not call the
shots. Ultimately, Bush decided on the war and there is nothing on his
motivation. Second, the CIA used INC sources for dozens of reports on Iraqi
WMD. The claim that it didn’t only happened after the 2003 invasion when the
CIA was trying to push everything on the administration. Third, while the CIA
did question Iraq-Al Qaeda ties, it completely believed that Iraq had WMD and
that those programs were growing hence its rejection of the findings of the
Iraqi-American campaign. Again, Risen used too many sources from the CIA and
only got their side of the story. That is a major fault with the book, which
happened to several other authors who published books around this time.
The section on the occupation of Iraq also had its issues.
The good part was that the CIA was one of the first to warn that an insurgency
was emerging and then growing in Iraq in 2003. That was rejected by the White
House because Bush only wanted to hear good news. Risen rightly places the
blame for the postwar chaos on the failure of the U.S. to make a comprehensive
plan for Iraq. Then, he fell for the Agency sources again who blamed the Pentagon
for wanting to put Ahmed Chalabi in power rather than come up with an actual
strategy for Iraq. First, while some of the neoconservatives did back Chalabi
that was never an actual policy. The lack of a strategy for how to create a
post-Saddam Iraq was a much deeper flaw throughout the White House and military
that didn’t understand the war they were getting into. They believed regime
change was an end in itself rather than just a step towards a new Iraq. On the
other hand, the CIA did quickly realize that things were not going right, but
President Bush didn’t want to hear it. He believed in his decision to invade
and it took him four years to change his mind. This was a fault of the
president’s stubbornness more than anything else. Risen’s problem was that he
was looking more at the CIA-White House dispute in this matter rather than
exploring the man in charge of everything the president.
In the end State of War is a very inconsistent read.
The sections on the abuses that came out of the war on terror are convincing.
The handling of Iran was shocking for its incompetence. The coverage of Iraq
however was more up than down. That was largely the result of Risen listening
to too many from the CIA who were trying to avoid blame for the Iraq invasion.
He repeated too many of their claims which were often wrong and misleading.
Overall, this book was a reflection of its time. Many American writers around
2006 were trying to decide if Iraq’s policy after 9/11 was going in the right
direction. The abuse of terror suspects, the spying upon Americans and the Iraq
War all seemed to point in the negative. The gapping hole in the narrative is
the president’s role. There was nothing on Bush’s thinking that led to the Iraq
invasion for instance. There’s no way to evaluate his responsibility for what
transpired as a result. This problem was quite common for many other writers at
this time as well.
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