Authored and released in 2004, Plan of Attack is a book by a popular American political reporter and writer, Bob Woodward. According to many readers from America and the entire world, the release of the book could not have happened at a better time, than it did during President Bush’s time on the Iraq’s political system. Woodward in his book Plans of Attack, gives a vivid and a comprehensive understanding of the White House activities, and resolves around the power of the American Presidency, and its role in influencing the political situation around the world. Having been an investigative reporter in the USA, Bob Woodward acquired the requisite insights to detail the information of how and why the then American President George Bush, made a political and a historical decision to wage a war against Saddam Hussein of Iraq, to pull down his administration through force other than diplomacy.
In the first chapter of his book, his primary line of argument, which forms the basis for the book title, Bob Woodward belongs to a school of thought that from the initial periods of his presidential powers in America, President George Bush had prior plans to strip off Saddam Hussein of his political powers. However, unlike the global expectation that President Bush would have diplomacy at the top of his priority list, Woodward, in chapter 2 and 3, presents a contrary trend from his investigative approach. According to his ideas, Bush prefers and devises a violent mechanism; a plan of attack based on war and force to evict the Iraq’s president from power. This is a portrayal of the deliberations from the White House, with an idea that force was an indispensable tool in the fight to remove Saddam Hussein from the Iraq’s political sphere. In this case, Iraq may have needed a foreign force to establish a process of changing the regime, as Woodward depicts in the subsequent chapters.
The Form and Content of the Arguments
Bob Woodward has greatly relied on his position as an investigative journalist to access fundamental facts, upon which he writes his ideas in chapters 4 to 10. His position as an investigative journalist, in tandem with the ability to gather behind-the-scene information regarding White House activities, gives his forms of argument a reliable ground of convention from the readers. The position therefore forms a credible premise from which one would draw a conclusion that there are facts in the form of arguments presented by Bob Woodward.
For instance, the sixth and seventh chapters further analyze the idea of Bush at war, in which he presents himself as more of a chronicler, other than the common perception that he is more of a political analyst. The Bush at war concept has a basis on the knowledge of various cabinet activities during the Bush Administration. While Bob Woodward gives a vivid account of the flow and chain of such cabinet activities from the eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh chapters. In tandem with the different levels of interaction between the players in the game of war, the author’s form of argument seem not to indulge into deeper and risky aspects of the American intelligence, such as the crucial WMD intelligence of the Bush Administration.
Strengths
Woodward based on his research and investigative job has provided a plethora of facts with an aim of demystifying the mystery that has taken center stage of people’s understanding of the American presidency for ages. As a point of strength for his work, Woodward’s contributions have gained a strong position as the American Court chronicler at a critical time in the Bush Administration. While Bush has a plan of launching war in Iraq, Woodward releases a publication, The Plan of Attack, detailing the plans and circumstances involved with the concept of Bush at war. The book plays a critical role in providing the public American readers, who do not only get the basic information regarding the underway White House activities, but also inform them of the upcoming schism within the American court system.
The ideas from the book, especially from chapter 20 shows the relationship between the American Presidency and the judicial system, as well as the existing levels of interaction between the two institutions in making critical decisions, especially those dealing with American foreign policies.
Furthermore, Woodward’s account of the war against Iraq by the Bush Administration has also been described as a landmark source, whose coherent arguments and facts have a tangible base in the American history in the past two years. The account is an original account, with an authoritative approach to narration of what the author may have called behind-the-scene attempts to uncover the possible causes and impacts of the underway war, since the war of Vietnam.
Most of the ideas presented in the majority of chapters to form core arguments are based on real interviews with key participants in the decision making model, including President Bush himself. It therefore forms an integral part of the American Presidential history, especially regarding the making of critical decisions that define the relationship between the US and the world.
Weaknesses
The facts and arguments advanced by Woodward have manifested loopholes in knowledge, with a majority playing a pivotal role in enhancing a clear and credible understanding of the American Presidency, especially during the Bush Administration. For instance, many reviewers have forwarded an argument that the account is a source through which crucial information from the White House could leak to the outside world, in cases where adequate intelligence caution fails to anchor in the country. For instance, there are a various disparities between Woodward’s account and the information from the interviews with various key players, such as information regarding when Bush made the decision to take up a war to topple Saddam’s administration in Iraq.
Organization and method
The organization and the method in which the facts and arguments of the book appear is a major strength, which has championed for its popularity among many readers regarding the Bush Administration and the war against the Iraqi Saddam Hussein. To begin with, the method, Woodward has adopted an interview approach to presenting crucial information he obtained from the key players in the Bush Administration. The interview approach does not only work as a credible source of information for his investigations, but also attains the trust of the audience because more information that is critical are own verbal words from the key players.
For example, Woodward spent a greater deal of his time in interviews with President Bush, in which he had close to six interviews running to a total of 11 hours. The interviews have also been organized in a chronological order, detailing the information gathered in the course of time as the plan of attack advanced from the initial points of attack to the later stages of its implementation. Even though there may be aspects of disparities, manifesting differences between Woodward’s account and the information from the interviews, there is a general sense of credibility since there was a real time participation of such key players such as the President Bush.
Woodward adopted a historical perspective while organizing and presenting his facts and arguments regarding the plan of attack on the Iraqi President. The author attempts to trace the roots of the war from the initial ideas in early 2003, and follows the decision making process by the key players who work in close consultation with President Bush in executing the attack on Iraq with an intention of evicting Saddam Hussein of political powers in the country. This approach gives the audience a clear background from which they would acquire a better comprehension of the American Presidency, and its role in the war against the Saddam Administration in Iraq in 2004.
As a wrap up, Woodward’s book, The Plan of Attack is suitable for a wide range of audience, including the political class, the societal intellects, journalists as well as the general society for general knowledge. This is because the book contains modern insights derived from a historical perspective, which help Americans as well as the entire world acquire a deeper understanding of the American Presidency as a Superpower. The book contains basic knowledge, which also help to determine the level and understand the relationship between the America and different parts of the world through their foreign policies. The typology of information and the associated knowledge is basic for general acquisition by various classes of people and interests in the society across the globe.
Work cited
Woodward, Bob. Plan of attack. Simon and Schuster, 2004.
I especially enjoyed sentences with correct grammar, but the meaning of which was a complete mystery. “The position therefore forms a credible premise from which one would draw a conclusion that there are facts in the form of arguments presented by Bob Woodward.” I had just one question after reading this: “WHAT?”
Sometimes, I would run into incomplete sentences like this one: “While Bob Woodward gives a vivid account of the flow and chain of such cabinet activities from the eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh chapters.” It would be okay if only there was no “while” in the beginning.
Anyways, in general, the paper is yet another example of poor writing: “The account is an original account, with an authoritative approach to narration of what the author may have called behind-the-scene attempts to uncover the possible causes and impacts of the underway war, since the war of Vietnam.”
”
|
Grammar
D
|
Formatting
F
|
Organization
C
|
Style
D
|