State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration

Risen, James

3.76

813 ratings by Goodreads

9780743555494: State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration

ISBN 10: 074355549X ISBN 13: 9780743555494

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2006

State of War reveals the secret history of the CIA and the presidency of George W. Bush�a series of hidden events that includes scandals that will redefine his presidencyThe hidden history features a National Security Agency that engaged in a massive domestic spying program, a Defense Department that made its own foreign policy, and a president who created a sphere of deniability�in which his top aides were briefed on matters of the utmost sensitivity, but the president was carefully kept in ignorance. James Risen, who has covered national security for The New York Times for years, draws on extraordinary sources in Washington and around the world to uncover an explosive chain of events:

Contrary to law, and with little oversight, the National Security Agency has been engaged in a massive domestic spying program. The United States actually gave nuclear-bomb designs to Iran. The CIA had overwhelming evidence that Iraq had no nuclear weapons programs during the run-up to the Iraq War. They kept that information to themselves, and didn�t tell the president. While the U.S. has refused to lift a finger, Afghanistan has become a narco-state, supplying 87 percent of the world's heroin market.Not since the 1970s have so many scandals in the intelligence community come to light. Shocking in its specifics and troubling in its ramifications, Risen�s secret history shows how power truly works in the Bush administration.

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Review:

"Explosive. James Risen may have become the new Woodward and Bernstein. Fast paced, quite mesmerizing, colorful, and fascinating." -- New York Times Book Review "New York Times Book Review" "Domestic spying, demands for political loyalty in the name of national security, investigating a newspaper's sources: With State of War, the Nixonian deja vu can give a reader whiplash." -- The Dallas Morning News "Damning and dismaying...As a national security reporter for the New York Times, Risen has produced some of this era's best journalism on the Central Intelligence Agency and the dysfunctional relationship between the White House and the U.S. spy community.... As one of the Washington press corps' best reporters on national security issues, Risen has a record of being right.... State of War is a welcome reminder that American journalism has a higher purpose than shallow pandering to the lowest pop-cultural denominator. Somewhere, beyond celebrity, there are issues and ideas that matter. James Risen's book is an urgent contribution to the country's common good by a skillful and courageous reporter." -- Los Angeles Times "Explosive.... James Risen may have become the new Woodward and Bernstein.... Fast paced, quite mesmerizing, colorful, and fascinating." -- The New York Times Book Review "Illuminating and disturbing...a monumental job of reporting." -- The New York Times "Risen's book is really about the secret of many things that have gone wrong in the administration of George W. Bush. The quantity, and apparent quality, of the secrets revealed in State of War distinguishes Risen's book from its competitors. What it represents is a profound hemorrhaging of information from within the corridors of secret power in Washington.... Risen becomes the mouthpiece for a U.S. intelligence community anxious to unburden itself of the mistakes and misdeeds of the recent past. He has not one, but many 'Deep Throats.'" -- Toronto Globe and Mail

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