State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration (Hardcover)

by James Risen (Author)
Key Phrases: rogue operation, nuclear blueprints, presidential authorization, United States, White House, Saddam Hussein (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
The winter holidays are usually a quiet time for news, but the December 2005 revelations of the Bush administration's extensive, off-the-books domestic spying program by New York Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau made headline after headline, raising criticism from both sides of the aisle and an immediate, unapologetic response from President Bush himself. On the heels of those scoops comes Risen's State of War, which goes beyond his Times stories to provide a wide-ranging, if anecdotal, "secret history" of U.S. intelligence following 9/11.

Risen's description of what he says was called "the Program"--the ongoing eavesdropping operation, done with almost no judicial or congressional oversight, on the phone calls and emails of hundreds of Americans (and potentially millions more)--is only a chapter in his larger tale of the recent missteps and oversteps of U.S. intelligence. His evidence ranges from insider White House accounts of Donald Rumsfeld, "the ultimate turf warrior," outmaneuvering his rivals to make the Defense Department the dominant voice in foreign policy, to on-the-ground reports of the administration's willful ignorance of crucial intelligence on the dormancy of Saddam's weapons programs, Saudi support for al Qaeda, and the startlingly rapid transformation of Afghanistan into a "narco-state" under American authority. Some of the episodes he recounts--Saudi security officials with Osama bin Laden screensavers, an Iraqi scientist who had told the CIA his country had no nuclear program watching Colin Powell testify to the UN that they did--would be comical were the stakes less high.

Risen's loyalties are not with the opposition party--he's sharply critical of Clinton's disinterest in the CIA--but with the career field agents who are his best sources. Those agents and their expertise, he argues, have been cast aside, along with the long centrist tradition of U.S. foreign policy and the basic checks and balances of the American system of government, by the Bush administration's radical politicization and militarization of intelligence. He covers a lot of ground in a book of just over 200 pages, some of it familiar from other accounts, and at times his tradecraft anecdotes can be hard to assess without context. But his specific revelations and his well-sourced, angry overview of the way the battles against terror have been fought make for startling, newsmaking reading. --Tom Nissley

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Lucid, balanced and brimming with surprises, this is a-to borrow a notorious phrase-slam dunk exposé of the CIA's recent snafus. New York Times reporter Risen is broadly sympathetic to the CIA, and his tactful use of inside sources shifts much of the blame away from field agents and toward the brass in Washington, where CIA Director George Tenet's eagerness to please his political masters and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's bureaucratic skills create the conditions for a perfect storm of intelligence failures. The book's disclosures about secret prisons, "renditions"-the transfer of suspects to countries which may torture them-and domestic wiretaps are likely to be talking points for some time, but its lasting value will be as a record of how the CIA came so tantalizingly close to the truth about Iraq's nonexistent nuclear arsenal. The retelling of one undercover operation shows the agency had direct evidence that there was no nuclear program in Iraq, but chose to doubt its source. Other scenes from the secret war on terror make novelist John Le Carre look like a timid plotter: a single misdirected message in 2004 brings down the agency's entire spy network in Iran, four years after a harebrained scheme had given Tehran flawed blueprints for a nuclear weapon-hoping to sow confusion, but possibly helping Iran to arm itself faster. Risen has written a thrilling, depressing and worrying book.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (January 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743270665
• ISBN-13: 978-0743270663
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (81 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #188,067 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

328 of 366 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Three major scoops, useful summary of tidbits from others, January 11, 2006

By	Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

EDITED to add note at bottom addressing anonymous sceptic. EDITED 6 Jun 06 to add note of Pentagon failing to capture Bin Laden.

There are three major scoops in this book that earn it five stars where the rest of the book might only merit four:

1) The obvious scoop now before Congress and the press, with respect to the National Security Agency (NSA) eavesdropping on citizens without a warrant.

2) The really really huge scoop, that Charlie Allen, then Deputy Director of Central Intelligence for Collection, was able to guide the recruitment of no fewer than 30 Iraqis able to travel back to see their relatives and conclusively document that there was no nuclear program and no weapons of mass destruction--this information was evidently not provided to Congress, the President, or (naturally), the public.

3) Slightly less sensational, the book reveals for the first time that a CIA "bait" operation actually delivered to Iran completely useful plans for creating a nuclear bomb...the CIA "flaws" intended to render the plans unworkable were detected in one glance by a Russian courier scientist, and easily correctable by the Iranians.

Over-all the book renders an important public service by pulling together in one place the many tid-bits that are publicly known, but is distressingly weak on crediting those many other sources (e.g. Jim Bamford, the last word on NSA).

The cover of the book is quite revealing in that it has photos of Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, and Tenet--those who follow the politics of the Executive know that Cheney is the man pulling the puppet strings, generally without being detected, and it is Cheney that allowed Rumsfeld to blatantly ignore the President, steam-roll Condi Rice, disrespect Tenet, and sideline Colin Powell.

Other major points in the book that merit our attention and respect:

1) According to the author, but consistent with my own experience across three three of CIA's directorates, CIA consistently screws those that try to tell the truth, such as the Chief of Station in Iraq that wrote the report saying the insurgency was going to hurt us badly and we were not winning.

2) CIA developed a "poisonous culture" that sought to mollify the President, avoid conflict with the Pentagon, and generally not be serious about its mission {"ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free")

3) CIA did not blow the whistle on the ramping up of Afghan drug production, and allowed the Pentagon to ignore the urgent calls from the Department of State for aerial spraying and other eradication measures--today Afghanistan provides 80% of the opium on the market.

4) Israel's Mossad briefed the neo-conservatives along lines they were pleased to hear, going around and against the CIA.

There are several minor flaws in the book that would normally reduce my appreciation to four stars, but the above scoops more than compensate. However, they are worth noting:

1) The book seriously over-sells and exaggerates NSA's capabilities. While they can indeed do some wondrous things, on balance NSA is in the 1970's and not at all ready for the modern world of emails, web directories, and phone texting.

2) The book touches on New York Times stories based on "leaks" from the White House but avoids naming Judith Miller or exploring whether she was an Israeli agent of influence.

3) The book touches on torture and rendition, but does not discuss how many have been imprisoned erroneously (in the dozens according to some accounts) or died as a result of torture (as many as two dozen according to some accounts). CIA literally made people "disappear" making it no better than the Argentines or the Israelis or the Nazis. Most of CIA is honest; a small segment engaged in torture and renditions is out of control.

4) The book supports the CIA field claims that the Northern Alliance allowed Bin Laden to escape, but fails to mention the well-documented facts that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, without consulting anyone, gave the Pakistanis an air corridor, ostensibly to evacuate a few of their "observers," that was used to actually evacuate over 3,000 Taliban and Al Qaeda personnel trapped by US forces in the Tora Bora area; and that CIA tracked Bin Laden for four days from Tora Bora to the Waziristan border, but the Pentagon was too chicken to drop a battalion of Rangers in his path (see my review of "JAWBREAKER."

5) The book comments on the 9-11 Commission being contradicted by open records in many respects, but fails to examine the close relationship between the White House, the Bush Family, and the Saudis, who were complicit in Al Qaeda's global growth and unwilling to help the US until after 9/11 and even then, very marginally.

6) The book has a highly questionable allegation that a single error by a CIA communicator "blew" all CIA Iranian assets. My understanding is that the CIA has been equally incompetent in recruiting Iranians as it was in recruiting Iraqis. This smells like a fish story.

Over-all the book delivers two compelling indictments:

1) Of CIA for self-censorship, pandering to the President and the Vice President, and failing to cover the Middle East properly over a period of decades.

2) Of Cheney and Rumsfeld, for orchestrating a virtual coup in which the President could be ignored, the National Security Advisor steam-rolled, the Secretary of State side-lined, and the entire policy process set aside in favor of Cheney-Rumsfeld dictates.

This is quite an amazing book, and highly recommended.

NOTE TO SCEPTIC: I bought this book from Amazon as soon as it was offered, read it on an airplane to Los Angeles on 10 Jan, and posted my review along with those of three other books I read on the trip, the evening I returned, 13 January. I read a lot, mostly on airplanes and hotel rooms. I put my notes on the flyleaf and mark the books up heavily.

39 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A State of War and a Day of Reckoning, May 5, 2006

By	!Edwin C. Pauzer (New York City) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

The author, James Risen attempts to write a fair and accurate account of the secret history of the C.I.A. and the Bush Administration. He succeeds admirably.

He acknowledges that President Clinton had little interest in the intelligence services, which had already begun to stagnate after the end of the cold war. Not realizing that danger doesn't go away, it only changes shape, the CIA had no assets embedded in the middle east to get the valuable intelligence it required. Most of the regimes maintained control that was so tight it would have taken years for someone to successfully infiltrate any regime.

Then there was bad management and bad decisions. Clinton appointed a director who made it clear he had no interest in the job. Senior CIA personnel left the agency and their experience at the door of retirement. Although a new director named Tenant restored morale, he was not able to provide the leadership the agency needed. He also allowed ingratiating junior analysts to bypass their immediate supervisors to deliver the information that he wanted to hear e.g. that aluminum tubes were used for WMD production.

Tenent also steered clear of information that he knew would not please his bosses. This included the Iraqi-American woman the CIA coaxed into returning home to elicit information from her brother who was working on nuclear development. He told his sister that Americans inadvertantly blasted the facility in the first Gulf War, and that the project was dead in the water. When the Iraqi-American doctor returned with her brother's information, the information was given short shrift.

C.I.A. officers who told the painful truth about the deteriorating conditions in Iraq found themselves defending their careers or being harangued into retirement. The administration was already heavily invested in a series of bad decsions, and as usual bad decision-making goes, they continued with it because they had spent too much time and money defending it.

Enter Don Rumsfeld, the arrogant and smug Defense Secretary whom Risen makes clear was determined to do things his way, and you have the CIA turned on its head. Rumsfeld was determined to make the Defense Intelligence Agency the premier intelligence organization. Rumsfeld implemented his plans even when the administration told him to do otherwise. He simply ignored his boss. But who is responsible for Rumsfeld being, pardon the expression, a loose cannon?

Enter George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Risen makes it clear through his numerous shadowy sources that Cheney and senior White House officials made policy decisions without the knowledge of the President of the United States. This afforded the president deniability for decisions ranging from officially sanctioned torture, wire taps on American citizens, increased heroin prodution in Afghanistan, ad infinitum.

So we end up with a president who fills the role of godfather protected by his vice president and consigilieri, and no one is responsible or accountable for haphazard and cherry-picked intelligence. Risen at least has the guts to put the acountability where it belongs. After all, the president has to take responsibility for something.

One day we will be called to account for invading a sovereign nation that did not threaten us, defining torture as just short of organ failure, sanctioning water board torture, and practicing it with a barbarity we would only expect from our enemies, wiretapping our own citizens in clear violation of the law, and for gaining the enmity of the world.

Let's hope our president takes a better look under the couch before he jokes about not being able to find WMD's somewhere else.

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Compelling narrative, but feels very rushed, January 27, 2006

By	Jason A. Miller (New York, New York USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is the kind of book that may have benefitted from an extra 400 pages. Based primarily on a series of New York Times articles, and hurried into print just fast enough to stare slack-jawed as George W. Bush received an inexplicable boost in the media for defending the very domestic spying program this book exposed, "State of War" feels as if it came covered in Post-It notes and editorial marking saying [insert explanations here later].

A case in point: the book's epilogue ends with the poetic conclusion: "Dreams die hard, but the dreams of the Bush administration died in places like Fallujah, Ramadi, and Tal Afar." Fine, but those geographical slash military references aren't explained anywhere in the book. Clearly you have to know something about Iraq going in; "State of War" is not a definitive history. That's not a problem today in the heat of the moment, but it does indicate that "State of War" is something of a quickie meant to cash in on a story now, and lay forgotten in 20 years when more information comes to light. To make a Watergate reference out of this (because everything comes back to Watergate) this is more likely to be remembered as H.R. Haldeman's "The Ends of Power", rather than "The Haldeman Diaries".

That said, Risen's narrative is very compelling in places, especially when he is telling a story from someone else's point of view. The book is at its most direct and urgent when he describes the Iraqi doctor visiting her nuclear physicist brother in Baghdad on a last-ditch human intelligence gathering misison for the CIA, or when he tells the story of the Russian nuclear scientist secretly paid by the CIA to delivery faulty weapons blueprints to an Iranian embassy in Vienna.

The outline of the book develops the argument that inherent weaknesses in the Bush administration (Cheney and Rumsfelds' tendencies to make their own policy) have made a mockery of American foreign policies, and eviscerated long-standing institutions. I'm no insider so all I can do is stroke my chin and say that Risen writes in a way that sounds believable. At the same time, this is no liberal-slanted "yellow journalism" -- Risen doesn't miss several opportunities to assail Bill Clinton's neglect of the intelligence community, but his facts differ from what Richard Clarke wrote about a few years ago so I am not sure I believe every word he writes. Interestingly, Clarke is only mentioned in passing in "State of War", even though the two books share considerable overlap.

Anyway, Risen follows a story from 9/11, through Afghanistan and Iraq, and then into Iran and perhaps beyond. For those fully supportive of the Bush administration's policies in 2006, this book provides a dose of skepticism. For those already inclined to believe that Bush is steering foreign policy increasingly in the wrong direction, this book provides sobering ammunition.