false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172529017m/186021.jpg 186021 7 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 <i>New York Times</i> 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 <i>State of War</i>, which goes beyond his <i>Times</i> stories to provide a wide-ranging, if anecdotal, "secret history" of U.S. intelligence following 9/11. <p> 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. <p> 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. <i>--Tom Nissley</i> 179815 24 10 2006 State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration total:95|5:18|4:26|3:37|2:12|1:2| 95 331 160 14 4 0 false false Sat May 02 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat May 09 10:06:21 -0700 2009 Sat May 09 14:35:02 -0700 2009 This is just another confirmation of the lies and the manipulation that the Bush admin, especially Cheney and Rum...more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Wed Oct 08 22:19:19 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 08 22:19:37 -0700 2008
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The absence of effective management has been the defining characteristic of the Bush administration’s foreign policy and has allowed radical decisions to tak...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Feb 09 22:51:59 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 09 23:05:47 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Nov 29 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 29 16:58:25 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 29 17:04:21 -0800 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Sun May 10 10:52:33 -0700 2009 Sun May 10 10:52:56 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Apr 13 10:54:39 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 13 10:58:20 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Tue May 26 07:48:40 -0700 2009 Tue May 26 07:48:40 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Mon Feb 23 17:16:52 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 23 17:18:47 -0800 2009 2 0 false false Mon Oct 06 12:56:10 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 06 13:04:39 -0700 2008 more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Apr 01 10:52:49 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 01 10:53:04 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 02 07:14:26 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 02 07:20:03 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 16 07:26:21 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 16 07:28:04 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Wed Oct 22 00:27:52 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 22 00:28:49 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Sat Aug 30 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 31 22:17:28 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 01 11:18:19 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Wed Dec 02 12:55:08 -0800 2009 Wed Dec 02 12:55:08 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Mon Nov 30 23:02:25 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 30 23:02:25 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sun Nov 29 17:16:18 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 29 17:16:18 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sun Nov 01 21:55:18 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 01 22:18:53 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Mon Oct 19 21:15:38 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 19 21:15:38 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Oct 18 15:31:03 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 18 15:31:03 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=186021