Bob Woodward n’est plus leur “historien” préféré

Hier matin, George Stephanopoulos, ancien conseiller de presse de Clinton reconverti dans le journalisme, recevait Dan Bartlett, un des plus proches conseillers de GW Bush, lors de son émission “This Week with George Stephanopoulos”, sur la chaîne ABC.

Les deux hommes ont parlé du livre de Bob Woodward, State of Denial. La transcription de l’interview (notamment reprise par RAW Story) montre que l’équipe de GW n’a pas aimé, mais pas aimé du tout le livre de Woodward. L’impression assez étrange qui ressort parfois, lorsque Bartlett parle des deux précédents bouquins de Woodward sur le sujet (Bush at War et Plan of Attack) par rapport à State of Denial, est celle d’une accusation de trahison. Comme s’il y avait eu rupture de contrat.

L’interview laisse aussi l’impression que State of Denial, même s’il n’apport rien de neuf, constitue un énorme événement médiatique et virtualiste, plus encore à cinq semaines des élections. L’“historien” a trahi parce qu’il est sorti du monde virtualiste pour écrire son livre. C’est un beau coup de sa part et un mauvais coup porté à GW.

L’ordre ne règne plus à Washington.

Deux extraits substantiels de l’interview… (A noter la dernière intervention citée, sur les bruits courant aujourd'hui sur le sort de Rumsfeld.)

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Now, in 2004, Bob Woodward wrote a book, ''Plan of Attack.'' You went out publicly, urged people to go buy it and read it. I take it you're not going to do that with State of Denial.

MR. BARTLETT: Well, George, it is a book that we participated at various levels within the administration, both in the White House and other parts of the administration and the Department of Defense, and State. But I must say, George, I think as we worked with Bob on this project from the very outset it was unfortunate that we felt he had already formulated some conclusions even before the interviewing began.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: That's a pretty stiff charge. You're saying he was a biased reporter on this?

MR. BARTLETT: Well, we've had a lot of experience with Bob. And I think — in the first two books, as you did mention — and what we found in those books is that he came in very much with an open mind, very much wanting the facts to lead him to a conclusion. And after reading this book over the weekend, I was really struck by the fact that the central thesis of this book, the claim that the president was in a state of denial, that he was misleading the American people about what was happening in Iraq, quite frankly is not backed up with own facts of the book.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, I want to get there in one second, but before we get there, because you're making a pretty serious charge here. You're saying that Bob Woodward, been around Washington for an awful long time, went into this with an agenda and basically wasn't an honest reporter.

MR. BARTLETT: I didn't say that he wasn't an honest reporter. Reporters come in with conclusions or some firm ideas about where they want to take a book and on certain occasions when he met with administration officials and they would come to talk to me about their meetings with him, there was just a sense that despite spending hours with him that their points weren't getting across.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: So you found he had an agenda?

MR. BARTLETT: I'm not going to use the word ''agenda,'' but we did feel like he approached this book different than he did the first two and that's why we made the decision that the president was not going to…

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS:: And the vice president didn't speak with him, either.

MR. BARTLETT: That's correct.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS:: So, looking at it from the outside, it looks like, well, if Bob Woodward's going to write a positive book, he gets cooperation, he gets praise. If it's a negative book, well, he didn't have an agenda, but he didn't approve of his approach.

MR. BARTLETT: Well, I'll make the point, though, we didn't agree with everything he put in his second book, either. But the fact of the matter is many people in the administration, including myself, including the national security advisor, including the secretary of state, including the joint chairmen — the chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of staff, including many other people who did participate in this book. But what we were struck by was the fact that time after time after time counter-evidence was provided to Bob, and we didn't feel like our point was getting across and, you know, it's my job to make judgments like that as to whether the president ought to participate. And you know, we made the…

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS:: And you don't feel he included the counter-evidence in the book?

MR. BARTLETT: Not as much as we thought. But as I said, what's interesting about this book is that he doesn't connect his own dots. What he talks about in here is that there is a grim picture in Iraq that the president wasn't sharing with the American people, but we didn't have a strategy, when in fact he references throughout the book, time after time after time where the president was being presented with the bad information, was pushing the internal process to make sure that we were adapting to the enemy, and he was sharing this news with the American people.

(…)

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS:: One of the more explosive allegations in the book goes back to before the war in Iraq. It goes back to 2001, he talks about a meeting, July 10, 2001, two months before 9/11, CIA Director George Tenet and his counterterrorism chief, Cofer Black, are reading intelligence, they are so caught up by what they are seeing. They see an attack coming. They call up Condi Rice for an unscheduled meeting, go to the White House, warn her of this, say that need action. But after the meeting, they both felt they were not getting through to Rice. ''She was polite, but they felt the brush-off. A coherent plan for covert action against Bin Laden was in the pipeline, but it would take some time.'' They believe it was a mistake not to act after that meeting.

MR. BARTLETT: Well, I must say, myself and other members, including Secretary Rice, who it alleges was in this meeting, there was a meeting…

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS:: You've spoken to her?

MR. BARTLETT: I spoke to her this morning. She believes that this is a very, grossly misaccurate (sic) characterization of the meeting they had. Look, George, the first eight months of President Bush's presidency has been some of the most investigated eight months in any presidency because of the 9/11 attack. We had the 9/11 Commission, a bipartisan commission, look at all of it, look at all of the information that was provided to government officials. They testified before it. Now, four and a half, five years later, we're just now hearing about these vivid accounts of meetings with Secretary Rice?

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS:: Cofer Black says, ''The only thing we didn't do was pull the trigger to the gun we were holding to Rice's head.''

MR. BARTLETT: And Cofer Black and George Tenet and others also testified before the 9/11 Commission. Why is it now that…

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS:: So this didn't happen?

MR. BARTLETT: And that's Secretary Rice's view that that type of urgent request to go after Bin Laden, as the book alleges, in her mind didn't happen. But I don't want to leave the wrong impression, George. Everybody in government felt we could have done a better job before 9/11. We had huge gaps in our intelligence-gathering capabilities. The wall between law enforcement and intel, and that's why we've worked so hard in the last couple of years to reform these things so we can do a better job of protecting the American people.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS:: Finally on this book, Woodward reports that not only the Chief of Staff Andy Card but also the Secretary — who wanted Rumsfeld to go — but also the Secretary of State, the National Security Advisor, and her deputy all recommended a new national security team after the election, that the president didn't take that advice, he said Colin Powell has to go, Donald Rumsfeld should stay. Why?

MR. BARTLETT: Well, as you would expect a chief of staff to do at the beginning of a new term is to make an assessment of all senior staff, as well as your cabinet, and that's exactly what Andy Card did, in fact, recommending to the president that he may want to change his chief of staff himself. And what Steve Hadley and Condi Rice and others said, ''Mr. President, maybe you ought to think about just bringing in a whole new team. Do it all at once.'' And the president decided that's not the approach he wanted to take. And Andy, as a chief of staff should do, was providing options to the president in case he decided to make changes. But as everybody knows, the president decided months ago that Secretary Rumsfeld is the right person for the job…

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Except Newsweek is reporting this morning that the president is actually sounding out people, including Henry Kissinger and James Baker, about whether he should replace Rumsfeld. And it quotes a senior White House official saying, ''So far, the advice has been Rumsfeld should stay, but I can't predict the future.'' Is his job secure throughout this term?

Mis en ligne le 2 octobre 2006 à 22H39