A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies [Hardcover]

James Bamford (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 8, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0385506724 | ISBN-13: 978-0385506724 | Edition: First Edition

The bestselling author of Body of Secrets and The Puzzle Palace presents his most hard-hitting book to date—a sweeping, authoritative, and fearless account of the failures of America’s intelligence agencies and the Bush administration’s calculated efforts to sell a war to the American people.

In The Puzzle Palace, James Bamford revealed the existence of the NSA, the largest, most secretive, and best-financed intelligence organization in the world. In Body of Secrets, he took readers inside the ultrasecret agency, charting its deeds and misdeeds from its founding in 1952 to the end of the twentieth century. Now Bamford applies his relentless investigative drive and unparalleled access to intelligence sources to produce a headline-making book about the most pressing issues of the present day.

From the mishandling of the pre-9/11 threat to the unproven claims about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, Bamford argues that the Bush administration has co-opted the intelligence community for its own political ends, and at the expense of American security.  Bamford makes the case that the Bush administration’s Middle East policy decisions, from overthrowing Saddam to ignoring the situation of the Palestinians, are driven by long-held beliefs and goals of an elite group of conservatives inside and outside of government.

A Pretext for War homes in on the systematic weakness that led the intelligence community to ignore or misinterpret evidence of the impending terrorist attacks of 9/11—a failure rooted in the refusal to acknowledge the central role of the Palestinian cause in igniting Arab rage against the United States.  Compounding the errors, the Bush administration’s immediate response to 9/11 was to call for an attack on Iraq, and it subsequently invented justifications for the preemptive war that has ultimately left the United States more vulnerable to terrorism.  

A Pretext for War is an unprecedented, utterly convincing exposé of the most secretive administration in history.  

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

James Bamford builds his case against America's intelligence agencies from the ground up, which makes for devastating reading not only for his subjects, but for anyone concerned with the nation's security or simply smart use of taxpayer dollars. Indeed, one can't help but cringe as the veteran journalist records the alarming post-Cold War floundering of the C.I.A., N.S.A., Defense Department, and succeeding administrations in the face of burgeoning terrorist threats that culminate with the attack on 9-11. Seemingly caught flatfooted by the demise of the Soviet Union, the U.S. intelligence community stumbles through the 1990s as it becomes institutionally hidebound and sluggish. During relatively peaceful times, its shortcomings, while not unnoticed, remain largely unaddressed. As Bamford sees it, with the arrival of George W. Bush, the situation goes from bad to worse. With the neocons in power, intelligence gathering is corrupted and politicized to create the grounds for going to war with Iraq. While much of what appears here has appeared earlier in works by Joseph Wilson, Richard Clarke, and others, Bamford pulls the loose ends together and adds new reporting to create a wide-ranging yet taut and absorbing expose of an American security apparatus that combines vast power with stunning ineptitude. --Steven Stolder

From Publishers Weekly

In this hard-hitting expose, investigative journalist Bamford (The Puzzle Palace; Body of Secrets) paints a damning portrait of an incompetent and politicized intelligence community. Before 9/11, he contends, the inadequacy of the CIA’s clandestine service hobbled its fight against Osama bin Laden, forcing it to rely on mercenary Afghan proxies and cruise missile drive-bys. Meanwhile, bread-and-butter undercover operations to infiltrate and monitor al-Qaeda were eschewed, and leads on the upcoming attacks bungled. After 9/11, he asserts, the Bush administration used the attacks as a pretext for a long-planned invasion of Iraq; a Defense Department intelligence unit was set up to tout trumped-up evidence against Saddam, which, Bamford says, CIA analysts were pressured into endorsing. Much of the book rehashes a now familiar critique of both the pre-9/11 lapses and the Bush administration’s selling of the war, but the author enriches it with a wealth of insider interviews that illuminate structural problems in the nation’s intelligence effort. Bamford lards his account with pointless mise-en-scene ("in the onyx darkness, George W. Bush switched on the brass sidelight next to his bed") and a gratuitous, if gripping, narrative of the carnage of 9/11. But when he gets down to analysis, his broad understanding of America’s intelligence institutions and procedures make this a must-read for anyone concerned about the current state of affairs.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition edition (June 8, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385506724
• ISBN-13: 978-0385506724
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #827,025 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

112 of 124 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars An important book July 3, 2004

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

Like one of the other reviewers here on Amazon, I am an intelligence analyst for the US government. Unlike that reviewer, I personally witnessed how the Bush administration fabricated, twisted, distorted, "cherry-picked" and otherwise misused intelligence to justify the war in Iraq. Many of us on the inside pretty much knew that this war was already a done deal more than a year before it actually happened - Final decisions technically may not have been made, but it was obvious from observing what went on on a day-to-day basis that the war was going to happen. If it had not been for Colin Powell, it probably would have happened much earlier. It was my personal experience in the run-up to this war that led me to read Bamford's book. I was curious to see how right he would get it. In the end, I feel he did a decent job. He has gathered good information, and he has been fairly thorough.

The only issues I really had with the book were that it seemed to meander or repeat itself in parts - a slight lack of organization, at least when you hold the body of the book up to his thesis - that we went to war in Iraq based on a pretext. I also was a little bored, personally, with the first two-thirds of the book, dealing with the events surrounding 9/11. Not that he didn't have good information there or that it wasn't well written, it just wasn't the reason I picked up the book. I was expecting more Iraq, less 9/11. I also felt that Bamford could have gone into more detail on the myriad of reasons that the administration actually had for invading Iraq. As Paul Wolfowitz acknowledged after the war, WMD was simply the easiest one for all the decision makers at the NSC to agree on. I also think Bamford gave a little too much credence to the idea that the President was motivated by the earlier Iraqi assassination attempt on his family.

I have seen reviews saying that Bamford approaches anti-semitism in his discussion of neoconservative ties to Israel and the question of Israeli pressure on the US to go to war. What Bamford presents here, however, are facts. It is a fact that many neoconservatives who are now in government have, previously, worked for organizations that basically put them on Israel's payroll. Many have worked for Israel-sponsored groups lobbying the US government on behalf of Israel. They have pushed to sway US foreign policy in directions that are very pro-Israel and very anti-Palestinian. It is clear that these individuals have Israel's interests at heart. What is not clear to me is whether they have the same loyalty to the United States. The Israeli government was also very enthusiastic for the Bush administration to go to war against Iraq, and was very emphatic in urging us not to delay the invasion. They also contributed at least some of the bad intelligence which helped support the administrations's push for war. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was publicly quoted (in the Israeli press) before the war as saying he intended to talk to President Bush and request that we move on to deal with Iran and Syria once we were done with Iraq. It is a fact that some US troops on the ground in Iraq, toward the "end" of the initial fighting, were under the impression that they would be moved to the Iranian border in preparation to invade Iran. In the end, it is a fact that our invasion of Iraq was more clearly in Israel's national security interests than it was ours.

Is this a "Bush-bashing" book? No. The author presents the facts, and the President just doesn't come off looking very good. Sorry about that, but the truth hurts sometimes. The President may not have been the one that made a conscious decision to mislead the American public, but it happened on his watch, and he bears the ultimate responsibility for it. He is not the only one responsible, of course. Many in the upper level of the intelligence community simply rolled over and let this happen. And then of course there's the case of Ahmed Chalabi and friends, who knowingly fed false information to US intelligence in order to manipulate US foreign policy. This war was a result of poor leadership, bad intentions and sloppy intelligence work.

What I find particularly disturbing are the reviews here on Amazon who pan this book not for its substance but its politics. These reviewers display the typical knee-jerk defensive reaction of the right (I'm an independent, just for the record) in attacking the author's politics instead of attempting to refute his arguments.

Read the book and form your own opinions.

123 of 139 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The one book to read if only one, not a substitute for many June 27, 2004

By Robert David STEELE Vivas HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I know Jim Bamford personally, and consider him to be one of the most capable of researchers and most objective of writers on intelligence matters. His deep personal relationships across the U.S. Intelligence Community make him the best possible reporter.

For those of us steeped in the literature, that routinely read both the daily reporting and the regular books, much of what Jim has put together here will be repetitive. This is, however, the very best book to read if you only have the time for one book on the topic of 9-11, the failure of U.S. intelligence, and the corruption of U.S. policy in using 9-11 as a pretext for invading Iraq and giving Bin Laden the best possible (i.e. most stupid) strategic response to 9-11.

This is the ideal book for any citizen who wants a professional "once over" tour of the various intelligence and policy pieces that broke down and allowed 9-11 to happen, and then allowed the entire "balance of powers" construct from our Founding Fathers to fly out the window. If you want to go deeper, see my thirteen Lists and 479+ other reviews of national security non-fiction.

The book is especially strong on the Rendon Group being used to illegally propagandize American citizens with U.S. taxpayer funds, on the abject failure of George Tenet in revitalizing U.S. clandestine operations, on the failure (treated more kindly) of Mike Hayden to bring the National Security Agency into the 21st Century, and on the very unhealthy merger of the U.S. neoconservatives that captured the White House, and well-funded Zionists in both America and Israel who essentially bought themselves an invasion of Iraq--a remarkable coincidence of interests: Jews paying to invade Iraq, Iranians using Chalabi to feed lies to the neo-cons so they would be deceived into thinking Iraq would be a cake-walk, and Bin Laden never daring to dream the entire U.S. population and all arms of government--including a passive media--would "sleep walk" into what this book suggests is one of the dumbest and most costly strategic errors in the national security history of the USA.

This book is not, despite some of the ideologically-motivated reviews below, an attack of George Bush Junior, as much as it is an appalled and informed review of how a complex government collapsed in the face of 9-11, and a handful of ostensibly patriotic and very myopic individuals were able to abuse their personal power because all of the professional counter-forces: the diplomats, the spies, the military professionals, the Congress, the media--every single one was not sufficiently competent nor sufficiently motivated to mandate a more balanced policy process that could understand the many global threats (terrorism and Iraq are actually two of the lesser ones), devise a comprehensive long-term strategy, and execute that strategy using *all* of the instruments of national power, including strong global alliances that lead all governments to fight all gangs in the most effective fashion possible.

We let kids play with matches, and they burned down the house.

106 of 124 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars An American horror story June 8, 2004

By Luan Gaines HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Audio Cassette

Lest we forget, the first 60 pages of A Pretext for War give a harrowing replay of the hijackings of 9/11, as seen first from the Air National Guard's Northeast Air Defense Sector, tracking the planes on radar as they pursue their deadly course. The personal details, conversations and horror-struck impressions are a reminder of the shock felt by all caught in the glare of this monstrous enterprise.

During the attacks on the World Trade Towers, President Bush remained in the classroom photo-op in Florida and General Myers, the acting military commander, spent forty-five minutes in the office of Senator Max Cleland, interviewing for the position of top brass in Cent Com, unaware that the worst attack in this country's history was occurring. The extent of our lack of preparation is shocking at this point, inexplicable. The missing third plane was not yet located. One hundred and ten minutes after takeoff, the forth plane, American Flight 11, came to a fiery end and the attacks were over at last.

In the meat of the book, Bamford covers the spy apparatus in this country, from the Cold War efforts of the NSA to George Tenet's meteoric rise as the head of the CIA during the Clinton Administration and the importance of Presidential Daily Briefings. Piece by piece, Bamford builds a solid structure of information, moving toward his conclusion: we are not much better off now, two years later, in the area of surveillance in other countries. Then he segues into the parallel growth of Osama bin Ladin's efforts to establish an anti-American legion of American fighters, in spite of active interference by Saudi Arabia and the freezing of bin Ladin's assets. Critical to his cause is the continuing support of America for Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. The May 1996 Israeli "Grapes of Wrath" Invasion of Lebanon and the massacre at Qana gave bin Ladin his battle cry, but the incident was barely covered by the American press.

This book addresses certain specific issues that are pertinent to the direction of the country since the Iraq War, namely the current condition of our government agencies: CIA, DIA, FBI, NSA, etc., and whether they have incorporated the drastic changes necessary since the end of the Cold War. Some of the topics covered, thoroughly, I might add, are: manufactured intelligence in pursuit of a vote for war in Iraq, bypassing Congressional oversight of major policy decisions, Chalabi's part in supplying information and the money he received for that information, the Niger uranium connection, the pro-Israeli Neo-Cons, Bush's connection with Sharon, and redrawing the geopolitical map of the Middle East.

The COG, or Continuity of Government, has existed since its inception during the Eisenhower Administration. In its current form, a decision was reached not to reconstitute Congress, but to operate without this branch of government. A critical element in the balance of power, Congress is excised from the shadow government, including those next in line for succession, Majority Leader Dennis Hastert and President pro-tem Robert Byrd. Within a few hours after the decision, senior officials quietly disappeared from Washington, turning up in selected "doomsday" sites in Virginia and Pennsylvania.

After carefully reading Bamford's A Pretext for War, my main concern is the balance of power between the branches of government. Without Congressional oversight, there is no release of public information and no control of abuses that may arise. There is still a credibility gap in terms of what public information is accessible. The condition of our intelligence gathering agencies is critical and if they have been inept or remiss, these problems must be faced, even if the agencies are exposed to public scrutiny. As well, the continuing lack of Congressional oversight is troubling.

Bamford doesn't pull any punches in his assessment of the problems facing America in the current state of crisis. After reading Woodward's Plan of Attack and Dean's Worse Than Watergate, I am even more concerned about the state of our nation and the lack of transparency in the current administration. In addition, Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill's assertions make more sense when viewed in context with all the information recently published. Certainly, 9/11 permanently changed our world, but the blanket use of discretionary powers to protect us from the terrorists has created a host of other issues that must be discussed and exposed to the light of day and the democratic process. Luan Gaines/2004.