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Book Bush and Cheney s War

    Book Details:
  • Author : Homer Duncan
  • Publisher : Trafford Publishing
  • Release : 2006
  • ISBN : 1412064201
  • Pages : 288 pages

Download or read book Bush and Cheney s War written by Homer Duncan and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2006 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To enhance profits for corporations, the Iraq War was planned by Dick Cheney when he was CEO of Halliburton; a Hell of a price to pay for innocent casualties.

Book The Co Presidency of Bush and Cheney

Download or read book The Co Presidency of Bush and Cheney written by Shirley Anne Warshaw and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-14 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This analysis of the Bush administration reveals how the president willingly ceded power to a calculating vice president—with disastrous consequences. Under the relatively inexperienced president George W. Bush, Dick Cheney was perhaps the most powerful vice president in American history. In this excellently documented work, presidential scholar Shirley Anne Warshaw debunks the popular myth that Bush’s authority was hijacked or stolen. Instead, drawing on extensive research as well as personal interviews with White House Staffers and Washington insiders, she demonstrates how Bush and Cheney operated as nothing less than co-presidents. While Bush focused on building what he called a moral and civil society, anchored by a war on science and by the proliferation of faith-based programs, he allowed Cheney to lead in business and foreign policy. Warshaw highlights Cheney’s decades-long career in Washington and his familiarity with its inner workings to present a complete picture of this calculating political powerhouse. From Cheney’s unprecedented merging of presidential and vice-presidential authority to his abhorrence of what he deemed congressional interference, Warshaw paints an intriguing, and at times frightening, portrait.

Book Days of Fire

Download or read book Days of Fire written by Peter Baker and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 834 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Top 10 Best Book of the Year A Washington Post Notable Book Theirs was the most captivating American political partnership since Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger: a bold and untested president and his seasoned, relentless vice president. Confronted by one crisis after another, they struggled to protect the country, remake the world, and define their own relationship along the way. The real story of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney is far more fascinating than the familiar suspicion that Cheney was the power behind the throne. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with key players, and thousands of pages of private notes, memos, and other internal documents, Baker paints a riveting portrait of a partnership that evolved dramatically over time, during an era marked by devastating terror attacks, the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, and financial collapse. Peter Baker has produced a monumental and definitive work that ranks with the best of presidential histories.

Book Bush and Cheney

    Book Details:
  • Author : David Ray Griffin
  • Publisher : Olive Branch Press
  • Release : 2016-09-01
  • ISBN : 9781566560610
  • Pages : 0 pages

Download or read book Bush and Cheney written by David Ray Griffin and published by Olive Branch Press. This book was released on 2016-09-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Was America’s response to the 9/11 attacks at the root of today’s instability and terror? Because of various factors, including climate change, ISIS, the war in Syria, the growing numbers of immigrants, and the growing strength of fascist parties in Europe, commentators have increasingly been pointing out that the chaos in the world today was sparked by the post-9/11 attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq. At the same time, there has also been much discussion of ways in which the Bush-Cheney administration’s response to 9/11 has damaged America itself by stimulating Islamophobia and fascist sentiments, undermining key elements in its Constitution, moving towards a police state, and in general weakening its democracy. While the first two parts of this book discuss various ways in which 9/11 has ruined America and the world, the third part discusses a question that is generally avoided: Were the Bush-Cheney attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq really at the root of the ruination of America and the world in general, or did the original sin lie in 9/11 itself?

Book To Start a War

Download or read book To Start a War written by Robert Draper and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-07-27 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Essential . . . one for the ages . . . a must read for all who care about presidential power.” —The Washington Post “Authoritative . . . The most comprehensive account yet of that smoldering wreck of foreign policy, one that haunts us today.” —LA Times One of BookPage's Best Books of 2020 To Start a War paints a vivid and indelible picture of a decision-making process that was fatally compromised by a combination of post-9/11 fear and paranoia, rank naïveté, craven groupthink, and a set of actors with idées fixes who gamed the process relentlessly. Everything was believed; nothing was true. Robert Draper’s fair-mindedness and deep understanding of the principal actors suffuse his account, as does a storytelling genius that is close to sorcery. There are no cheap shots here, which makes the ultimate conclusion all the more damning. In the spirit of Barbara W. Tuchman’s The Guns of August and Marc Bloch’s Strange Defeat, To Start A War will stand as the definitive account of a collective scurrying for evidence that would prove to be not just dubious but entirely false—evidence that was then used to justify a verdict that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and a flood tide of chaos in the Middle East that shows no signs of ebbing.

Book Cheney   S War Crimes

Download or read book Cheney S War Crimes written by Holcomb B. Noble and published by Author House. This book was released on 2013-02-07 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an important sense, Holcomb Noble spent most of his career at The New York Times preparing for this project, the first ten years as an acquisitions editor and rewrite person at the Sunday magazine. After stints as a science-section editor, metropolitan news editor, and business editor, he was made an investigations editor, during which he led two teams in year-long investigations that won back-to-back Pulitzer Prizesone proving that the Star Wars anti-missile shield would not work, saving the nation an estimated cost of more than a trillion dollars, and the second uncovering corruption in the space industry, which directly accounted for the crash of the space shuttle Challenger and death of seven astronauts. His journalism career began as a reporter for the Worcester Telegram in Massachusetts after graduation from Amherst College. He joined the Associated Press in 1960 and went on to become day supervising editor of the APs general news report. Part of his responsibilities included directing coverage of the moon missions of Apollo 12, 13, and 14 from the AP bureau at the space center in Houston. Cheneys War Crimes brings together for the first time the many strands of the Shakespearean tragedy that is the story of Dick Cheney. It gives an insiders account of his extraordinary seizure of power in becoming the de facto president; makes shocking disclosures about the chaos and confusion in response to the 9/11 attacks; and tells step by step how Cheney led the nation into two destructive wars in the Middle East.

Book Cruel and Unusual

Download or read book Cruel and Unusual written by Mark Crispin Miller and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2004 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In "Cruel and Unusual," Mark Crispin Miller exposes what he calls the Bush Republicans' contempt for democratic practice, their bullying religiosity, their reckless militarism, and their apocalyptic views of the economy and the planet.

Book Cheating Justice

Download or read book Cheating Justice written by Elizabeth Holtzman and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2012-02-07 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the debate continues about impeaching President Trump, whether we're in a full blown Constitutional crisit, and which Trump administration officials should be prosecuted for illegal actions, Cheating Justice serves as useful background for how we got here by examining how the Bush-Cheney administration broke the law—and how the people can bring them to justice. Despite the many misdeeds of and abuses of criminal law by the Bush administration, there has been no accountability. Former U.S. representative Elizabeth Holtzman pairs with lawyer and journalist Cynthia L. Cooper to explain why we can’t “just move on.” They lay bare how the Bush-Cheney administration broke a multitude of laws and betrayed American values, and exactly why and precisely how we, the people, must bring them to justice for their crimes, their cover-ups, and their deceit. Backed by strong evidence gleaned from “astounding”* research, Holtzman and Cooper argue that the Bush administration not only violated various U.S. laws but also changed many laws to escape prosecution for their crimes later. The authors demonstrate how a failure to hold George W. Bush and Dick Cheney accountable would set a dangerous precedent for the future leadership of America. Bush and Cheney deceived Congress and the people to drive us into a war in Iraq; they claimed the right to wiretap illegally and to eavesdrop on citizens; and they authorized torture, upending laws and breaching international treaty obligations. Yet, both Bush and Cheney are boldly unabashed about their offenses. In his memoir, President Bush makes no apologies for his decision to start a war in Iraq, though no weapons of mass destruction, the ostensible reason for the war, were found there. And once out of office, Bush proudly said, “Damn right,” about his approval of waterboarding, a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions and U.S. law. Recent revelations about the extent and depth of their crimes, catalogued in detail here, make the need for accountability imperative. As a member of Congress and part of the committee that investigated and held hearings on the conduct of President Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal, Elizabeth Holtzman condemns Bush’s adoption of Nixon’s claim that he acted in the interest of national security. Using Watergate-era reforms as a model, Holtzman details the steps necessary to undo the damage that the Bush-Cheney administration inflicted and explains how we can establish new protections to block future presidents from similarly abusing the law. Cheating Justice is not only a call to empower the American people, and a firm insistence that the nation’s leaders are not above the law; it is also a blueprint by one of America’s top legal minds for bringing Bush to justice and protecting the future of our democracy. *Publishers Weekly

Book Bush At War

    Book Details:
  • Author : Bob Woodward
  • Publisher : Simon and Schuster
  • Release : 2012-12-25
  • ISBN : 1471104699
  • Pages : 483 pages

Download or read book Bush At War written by Bob Woodward and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-12-25 with total page 483 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With his unmatched investigative skill, Bob Woodward tells the behind-the-scenes story of how President George W. Bush and his top national security advisers led the nation to war. Extensive quotations from the secret deliberations of the National Security Council and firsthand revelations of the private thoughts, concerns and fears of the president and his war cabinet, make BUSH AT WAR an unprecedented chronicle of a modern presidency in a time of grave crisis. Based on interviews with more than a hundred sources and four hours of exclusive interviews with the president, BUSH AT WAR reveals Bush's sweeping, almost grandiose vision for remaking the world. Woodward's virtual wiretap into the White House Situation Room reveals a stunning group portrait of an untested president and his advisers, three of whom might themselves have made it to the presidency. In BUSH AT WAR, Bob Woodward once again delivers a reporting tour de force.

Book George Bush s War

Download or read book George Bush s War written by Jean Edward Smith and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1992 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Study of the strengths and weaknesses of the president's control of foreign policy during the Persian Gulf War.

Book Rise of the Vulcans

    Book Details:
  • Author : James Mann
  • Publisher : Penguin
  • Release : 2004-09-07
  • ISBN : 9780143034896
  • Pages : 468 pages

Download or read book Rise of the Vulcans written by James Mann and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2004-09-07 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When George W. Bush campaigned for the White House, he was such a novice in foreign policy that he couldn't name the president of Pakistan and momentarily suggested he thought the Taliban was a rock-and-roll band. But he relied upon a group called the Vulcans—an inner circle of advisers with a long, shared experience in government, dating back to the Nixon, Ford, Reagan and first Bush administrations. After returning to power in 2001, the Vulcans were widely expected to restore U.S. foreign policy to what it had been under George H. W. Bush and previous Republican administrations. Instead, the Vulcans put America on an entirely new and different course, adopting a far-reaching set of ideas that changed the world and America's role in it. Rise of the Vulcans is nothing less than a detailed, incisive thirty-five-year history of the top six members of the Vulcans—Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, and Condoleezza Rice—and the era of American dominance they represent. It is the story of the lives, ideas and careers of Bush's war cabinet—the group of Washington insiders who took charge of America's response to September 11 and led the nation into its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Separately, each of these stories sheds astonishing light not only on the formative influences that brought these nascent leaders from obscurity to the pinnacle of power, but also on the experiences, conflicts and competitions that prefigured their actions on the present world stage. Taken together, the individuals in this book represent a unique generation in American history—a generation that might be compared to the "wise men" who shaped American policy after World War II or the "best and brightest" who prosecuted the war in Vietnam. Over the past three decades, since the time of Vietnam, these individuals have gradually led the way in shaping a new vision of an unchallengeable America seeking to dominate the globe through its military power.

Book Bush s Wars

    Book Details:
  • Author : Terry H. Anderson
  • Publisher : Oxford University Press
  • Release : 2011-07-01
  • ISBN : 0199831882
  • Pages : 312 pages

Download or read book Bush s Wars written by Terry H. Anderson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From journalistic accounts like Fiasco and Imperial Life in the Emerald City to insider memoirs like Jawbreaker and Three Cups of Tea, the books about America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could fill a library. But each explores a narrow slice of a whole: two wars launched by a single president as part of a single foreign policy. Now noted historian Terry Anderson examines them together, in a single comprehensive overview. Shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush told advisor Karl Rove, "I am here for a reason, and this is how we're going to be judged." Anderson provides this judgment in this sweeping, authoritative account of Bush's War on Terror and his twin interventions. He begins with historical surveys of Iraq and Afghanistan-known respectively as "the improbable country" and "the graveyard of empires," and he examines US policies toward those and other nations in the Middle East from the 1970s to 2000. Then Anderson focuses on the Bush Administration, carrying us through such events as the terrorist's attacks of 9/11, the invasion of Afghanistan and the siege of Tora Bora, the "Axis of Evil" speech, the invasion of Iraq and capture of Baghdad, and the eruption of insurgency in Iraq. He ranges from RPGs slamming into Abrams tanks to cabinet meetings, vividly portraying both soldiers in the field and such policymakers as Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice. Anderson describes the counter-insurgency strategy embodied by the "surge" in Iraq, and the simultaneous revival of the Taliban. He concludes with an assessment of the prosecution of the wars in the first years of Barack Obama's presidency. Carefully researched and briskly narrated, Bush's Wars provides the single-volume balanced history that we have waited for. This new paperback edition takes the story through the first Obama term, covering our exit from Iraq and the ongoing drawdown in Afghanistan.

Book Destiny and Power

Download or read book Destiny and Power written by Jon Meacham and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 914 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this brilliant biography, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jon Meacham chronicles the life of George Herbert Walker Bush. NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time • NPR • St. Louis Post-Dispatch Drawing on President Bush’s personal diaries, on the diaries of his wife, Barbara, and on extraordinary access to the forty-first president and his family, Meacham paints an intimate and surprising portrait of an intensely private man who led the nation through tumultuous times. From the Oval Office to Camp David, from his study in the private quarters of the White House to Air Force One, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the first Gulf War to the end of Communism, Destiny and Power charts the thoughts, decisions, and emotions of a modern president who may have been the last of his kind. This is the human story of a man who was, like the nation he led, at once noble and flawed. His was one of the great American lives. Born into a loving, privileged, and competitive family, Bush joined the navy on his eighteenth birthday and at age twenty was shot down on a combat mission over the Pacific. He married young, started a family, and resisted pressure to go to Wall Street, striking out for the adventurous world of Texas oil. Over the course of three decades, Bush would rise from the chairmanship of his county Republican Party to serve as congressman, ambassador to the United Nations, head of the Republican National Committee, envoy to China, director of Central Intelligence, vice president under Ronald Reagan, and, finally, president of the United States. In retirement he became the first president since John Adams to see his son win the ultimate prize in American politics. With access not only to the Bush diaries but, through extensive interviews, to the former president himself, Meacham presents Bush’s candid assessments of many of the critical figures of the age, ranging from Richard Nixon to Nancy Reagan; Mao to Mikhail Gorbachev; Dick Cheney to Donald Rumsfeld; Henry Kissinger to Bill Clinton. Here is high politics as it really is but as we rarely see it. From the Pacific to the presidency, Destiny and Power charts the vicissitudes of the life of this quietly compelling American original. Meacham sheds new light on the rise of the right wing in the Republican Party, a shift that signaled the beginning of the end of the center in American politics. Destiny and Power is an affecting portrait of a man who, driven by destiny and by duty, forever sought, ultimately, to put the country first. Praise for Destiny and Power “Should be required reading—if not for every presidential candidate, then for every president-elect.”—The Washington Post “Reflects the qualities of both subject and biographer: judicious, balanced, deliberative, with a deep appreciation of history and the personalities who shape it.”—The New York Times Book Review “A fascinating biography of the forty-first president.”—The Dallas Morning News

Book Cinema Wars

    Book Details:
  • Author : Douglas M. Kellner
  • Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
  • Release : 2011-09-13
  • ISBN : 1444360493
  • Pages : 297 pages

Download or read book Cinema Wars written by Douglas M. Kellner and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-09-13 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cinema Wars explores the intersection of film, politics, and US culture and society through a bold critical analysis of the films, TV shows, and documentaries produced in the early 2000s Offers a thought-provoking depiction of Hollywood film as a contested terrain between conservative and liberal forces Films and documentaries discussed include: Black Hawk Down, The Dark Knight, Star Wars, Syriana, WALL-E, Fahrenheit 9/11 and other Michael Moore documentaries, amongst others Explores how some films in this era supported the Bush-Cheney regime, while others criticized the administration, openly or otherwise Investigates Hollywood’s treatment of a range of hot topics, from terrorism and environmental crisis to the Iraq war and the culture wars of the 2000s Shows how Hollywood film in the 2000s brought to life a vibrant array of social protest and helped create cultural conditions to elect Barack Obama

Book Dreaming War

    Book Details:
  • Author : Gore Vidal
  • Publisher : Bold Type Books
  • Release : 2009-07-21
  • ISBN : 0786750308
  • Pages : 209 pages

Download or read book Dreaming War written by Gore Vidal and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2009-07-21 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Gore Vidal's recent New York Times bestseller Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace was published, the Los Angeles Times described Vidal as the last defender of the American republic. In Dreaming War, Vidal continues this defense by confronting the Cheney-Bush junta head on in a series of devastating essays that demolish the lies American Empire lives by, unveiling a counter-history that traces the origins of America's current imperial ambitions to the experience of World War Two and the post-war Truman doctrine. And now, with the Cheney-Bush leading us into permanent war, Vidal asks whose interests are served by this doctrine of pre-emptive war? Was Afghanistan turned to rubble to avenge the 3,000 slaughtered on September 11? Or was "the unlovely Osama chosen on aesthetic grounds to be the frightening logo for our long contemplated invasion and conquest of Afghanistan?" After all he was abruptly replaced with Saddam Hussein once the Taliban were overthrown. And while "evidence" is now being invented to connect Saddam with 9/11, the current administration are not helped by "stories in the U.S. press about the vast oil wealth of Iraq which must- for the sake of the free world- be reassigned to U.S. consortiums."

Book In My Time

Download or read book In My Time written by Dick Cheney and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-08-30 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this eagerly anticipated memoir, former Vice President Dick Cheney delivers an unyielding portrait of American politics over nearly forty years and shares personal reflections on his role as one of the most steadfast and influential statesmen in the history of our country. The public perception of Dick Cheney has long been something of a contradiction. He has been viewed as one of the most powerful vice presidents—secretive, even mysterious, and at the same time opinionated and unflinchingly outspoken. He has been both praised and attacked by his peers, the press, and the public. Through it all, courting only the ideals that define him, he has remained true to himself, his principles, his family, and his country. Now in an enlightening and provocative memoir, a stately page-turner with flashes of surprising humor and remarkable candor, Dick Cheney takes readers through his experiences as family man, policymaker, businessman, and politician during years that shaped our collective history. Born into a family of New Deal Democrats in Lincoln, Nebraska, Cheney was the son of a father at war and a high-spirited and resilient mother. He came of age in Casper, Wyoming, playing baseball and football and, as senior class president, courting homecoming queen Lynne Vincent, whom he later married. This all-American story took an abrupt turn when he flunked out of Yale University, signed on to build power line in the West, and started living as hard as he worked. Cheney tells the story of how he got himself back on track and began an extraordinary ascent to the heights of American public life, where he would remain for nearly four decades: * He was the youngest White House Chief of Staff, working for President Gerald Ford—the first of four chief executives he would come to know well. * He became Congressman from Wyoming and was soon a member of the congressional leadership working closely with President Ronald Reagan. * He became secretary of defense in the George H. W. Bush administration, overseeing America’s military during Operation Desert Storm and in the historic transition at the end of the Cold War. * He was CEO of Halliburton, a Fortune 500 company with projects and personnel around the globe. * He became the first vice president of the United States to serve out his term of office in the twenty-first century. Working with George W. Bush from the beginning of the global war on terror, he was—and remains—an outspoken defender of taking every step necessary to defend the nation. Eyewitness to history at the highest levels, Cheney brings to life scenes from past and present. He describes driving through the White House gates on August 9, 1974, just hours after Richard Nixon resigned, to begin work on the Ford transition; and he portrays a time of national crisis a quarter century later when, on September 11, 2001, he was in the White House bunker and conveyed orders to shoot down a hijacked airliner if it would not divert. With its unique perspective on a remarkable span of American history, In My Time will enlighten. As an intimate and personal chronicle, it will surprise, move, and inspire. Dick Cheney’s is an enduring political vision to be reckoned with and admired for its honesty, its wisdom, and its resonance. In My Time is truly the last word about an incredible political era, by a man who lived it and helped define it—with courage and without compromise.

Book The Afghanistan Papers

    Book Details:
  • Author : Craig Whitlock
  • Publisher : Simon and Schuster
  • Release : 2022-08-30
  • ISBN : 1982159014
  • Pages : 384 pages

Download or read book The Afghanistan Papers written by Craig Whitlock and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Washington Post Best Book of 2021 ​The #1 New York Times bestselling investigative story of how three successive presidents and their military commanders deceived the public year after year about America’s longest war, foreshadowing the Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan, by Washington Post reporter and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Craig Whitlock. Unlike the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 had near-unanimous public support. At first, the goals were straightforward and clear: defeat al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of 9/11. Yet soon after the United States and its allies removed the Taliban from power, the mission veered off course and US officials lost sight of their original objectives. Distracted by the war in Iraq, the US military become mired in an unwinnable guerrilla conflict in a country it did not understand. But no president wanted to admit failure, especially in a war that began as a just cause. Instead, the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations sent more and more troops to Afghanistan and repeatedly said they were making progress, even though they knew there was no realistic prospect for an outright victory. Just as the Pentagon Papers changed the public’s understanding of Vietnam, The Afghanistan Papers contains “fast-paced and vivid” (The New York Times Book Review) revelation after revelation from people who played a direct role in the war from leaders in the White House and the Pentagon to soldiers and aid workers on the front lines. In unvarnished language, they admit that the US government’s strategies were a mess, that the nation-building project was a colossal failure, and that drugs and corruption gained a stranglehold over their allies in the Afghan government. All told, the account is based on interviews with more than 1,000 people who knew that the US government was presenting a distorted, and sometimes entirely fabricated, version of the facts on the ground. Documents unearthed by The Washington Post reveal that President Bush didn’t know the name of his Afghanistan war commander—and didn’t want to meet with him. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that he had “no visibility into who the bad guys are.” His successor, Robert Gates, said: “We didn’t know jack shit about al-Qaeda.” The Afghanistan Papers is a “searing indictment of the deceit, blunders, and hubris of senior military and civilian officials” (Tom Bowman, NRP Pentagon Correspondent) that will supercharge a long-overdue reckoning over what went wrong and forever change the way the conflict is remembered.