Editorial: Damage control sputtering

Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2006 | 7:45 a.m.

The Bush administration is zero for two over the past couple of weeks in attempts to counter information about the Iraq war that contradicts statements from the White House.

First, the administration declassified several pages of a report authored last spring by all 16 U.S. intelligence services. This was in response to stories broken by The New York Times and The Washington Post, which had reported on the report and its primary finding - that the Iraq war is only intensifying the worldwide terrorism threat.

The White House's release of four pages of the report, intended to add context to what the newspapers disclosed, actually served as added confirmation that the war is "cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement."

Now the administration is bottoming out as it attempts to counter the latest book by Bob Woodward, titled "State of Denial." Woodward is an assistant managing editor at the Post who, as a young reporter, shared a byline on stories credited with disclosing the full dimension of the Watergate scandal that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation.

In his book, Woodward presents a picture of an infighting Bush administration that brushed off pre-9/11 warnings, failed utterly to comprehend the resistance that an invasion of Iraq would ignite and now covers up the extent of the violence there being met by U.S. forces.

An immediate response by the White House was to dismiss the book as trifling.

White House spokesman Tony Snow labeled the book "cotton candy." "It kind of melts on contact," he said. This was nothing but wishful thinking, as news organizations have been writing or talking about the book nonstop since last week, even though it didn't hit bookstores until Monday.

Snow also said, "We've read this book before," suggesting that Woodward came up with nothing new. Snow was partially right, as news of the Bush administration's tragically disastrous war planning and disintegrating "stay the course" Iraq policy has been the subject of many books, blogs, TV news stories and magazine and newspaper articles.

How revealing is it when the White House reacts to criticism by saying it is nothing new?

In our view, Woodward's book - and all of the other books and articles that have documented grave failings on Iraq by the Bush administration - should be taken very seriously by the voting public. The current Congress, with its strong Republican majority, is not seriously challenging Bush's policies. The midterm election next month is an opportunity to elect a new Congress with the backbone to forge needed change.