| Abstract: | Abstract YEARS FROM NOW, historians seeking a barometer of the decline in popular support for the Iraq War need only read Bob Woodward's trilogy on the George W. Bush administration's foreign policy. The first volume, Bush at War, which exanfines the planning for the war in Afghanistan in 200l, borders at times on the hagiographical.1 The sequel, Plan of Attack, which examines the military and diplomatic approach to war in Iraq in 2oo3, is more reserved. Bush himself receives even-handed treatment, but many of his subordinates, in particular the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and the civilian leadership in the Pentagon, are severely criticized. Woodward's disillusionment is complete by the summer of 2oo6, when he published the dfird and final volume, State of Denial, which details the failures of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, and shows no sign of the patriotism that coloured the earlier work. Bush at War, written with the smoke from 9/11 wafting in the airs could praise because it does not focus on Iraq: few objected to the means used and the ends pursued in Afghanistan. But Plan of Attack and State of Denial seek to explain a manifestly unpopular war.1 |
