Asalamoalaikum Friends,

I am posting Bush at War by Bob Woodward. I think, it will be interesting, informative and helpful for all of us. Specially It will help us in preparing Ca Paper.
Here is what Bob Woodward himself have to say about this book.


A NOTE TO READERS

This is an account of President George W. Bush at war during the first
100 days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The information I obtained for this book includes contemporaneous notes
taken during more than 50 National Security Council and other meetings
where the most important decisions were discussed and made. Many
direct quotations of the president and the war cabinet members come
from these notes. Other personal notes, memos, calendars, written
internal chronologies, transcripts and other documents also were the
basis for direct quotations and other parts of this story.

In addition, I interviewed more than 100 people involved in the
decision making and execution of the war, including President Bush, key
war cabinet members, the White House staff, and officials currently
serving at various levels of the Defense and State Departments and the
CIA. Most sources were interviewed multiple times, several a
half-dozen or more times. Most of the interviews were conducted on
background--meaning that I could use the information but the sources
would not be identified by name in this book. Nearly all allowed me to
tape-record our interviews, so the story could be told more fully and
with the exact language they used.

I have attributed thoughts, conclusions and feelings to the
participants. These come either from the person himself, a colleague


with direct knowledge of them, or the written record--both classified
and unclassified.

President Bush was interviewed on the record twice--once for 90 minutes
by myself and Dan Balz, a colleague at The Washington Post, for a
lengthy eight-part series, "Ten Days in September," which was published
in the Post in early 2002. I have drawn on that interview and the
series for a portion of this book. I interviewed President Bush a
second time on August 20, 2002, at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, for
two hours and 25 minutes. The transcript shows that I asked questions
or made short comments 300 times. The president gave specific answers,
often very detailed, about his reactions and reasoning behind the main
decisions and turning points in the war.

War planning and war making involve secret information. I have used a
good deal of it, trying to provide new specific details without harming
sensitive operations or relationships with foreign governments. This
is not a sanitized version, and the censors, if we had them in the
United States--thank God we don't--would no doubt draw the line at a
different, more restrictive place than I have.

This book contains a voluminous amount of new, documented information
which I was able to obtain while memories were freshest and notes could
be deciphered. It is an inside account, largely the story as the
insiders saw it, heard it and lived it. Since it covers events and
secret deliberations that began just over a year ago, it is an early
version. But I was able to test the information I had for accuracy and
context with trusted sources I have known for years and in some cases
decades. Criticism, the judgments of history and other information
may, over the coming months and years, alter the historical
understanding of this era. This is my effort to get the best
obtainable version of the truth.

In 1991, I published a book called The Commanders which was about the
1989 invasion of Panama and the lead-up to the Gulf War during the
presidency of Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush.


"The decision to go to war is one that defines a nation, both to the
world and, perhaps more importantly, to itself," I wrote at the
beginning of that book. "There is no more serious business for a
national government, no more accurate measure of national leadership."
That is truer today than perhaps ever.

Bob Woodward October 11,2002 Washington, D.C.

Regards,
[attach][/attach]