Review "The Great War of Our Time"

In his book “The great war of our time” the author Michael Morell, who rose to the rank of Deputy Director of the CIA describes his time at the CIA. It is an interesting book and well worth the read. Unfortunately, or perhaps not the author sets out to write a nonpartisan book. This meant that certain stories had to either be created or maintained. For example the beginning of the book describes the author’s role in delivering the DPB to the President, in this case George W. Bush in his first year in office. So despite numerous books that describe Bush as detached and unquestioning during these briefings, this author claims that Bush would rapid fire questions at him. Is this true? The author gives us no anecdotal stories of this questioning. The two or three anecdotes he does provide concern trivial matters not really connected to the briefings. We do learn however about the “now you’ve covered your ass” statement. The author claims Bush did make this statement however it was a joke. The statement was not following the August 6th briefing “Bin Laden determined to attack in the US” but rather an earlier briefing in which Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld asked if the intel chatter could be to goad the US inton an over reaction. I can easily believe the authors claim on the timing of the statement, what I find less believable is that it was a joke. Why would it be a joke? If Bush or the VP asked for this information how was it a joke when it was provided? No, it doesn’t add up. The answer by the way on the question came in the form of a followup briefing “UBL threats are real.” When the author describes the Bin Laden briefings the author again, to be nonpartisan has to include the disclaimer that no action could be taken because the intel was nonspecific. This just doesn’t cut it. First, why bother providing the information if there was nothing that could be done about it? Second, and this is very important, in the late 90s I had a job that required frequent air travel, there was no shortage of times the airports were on alert. And when intel told of a millium bombing all the ports were put on alert. At one of those ports bomb making supplies were intercepted. Threats generated alerts in the late 90s, nothing in the first nine months of Bush’s administration. The author also claims that the Bush administration had planned a series of meetings to discuss terrorist threats. This information is contradicted first by Richard Clark and second by the Bush administration’s own record. No such reviews took place. As we come to the intelligence concerning Iraq’s WMD again the author is forced to toe a party line. The intel was in good faith, the CIA just genuinely just got it wrong. As part of that evidence the author claims other countries also thought Saddam had hidden WMDs. That statement however is contradicted by the Downing Street memo; “the evidence is being fixed to fit the policy.” If British intelligence had thought Iraq had WMD the memo would have read “the evidence is being used to support the policy.” Same with the evidence Colin Powell presented at the UN, just honest mistakes. Sorry doesn’t add up. The rest of the book in interesting, the first part however for me anyway the most informative.