National polls published this week report that Americans likely to vote in the next presidential election say that a candidate’s stands on terrorism and the war in Iraq are more important than their positions on the economy, education or health care. That shift in interest accounts for part of the extraordinary buzz that has surrounded “Plan of Attack” Bob Woodward’s engrossing and astonishingly detailed reconstruction of how President Bush reached his January 2003 decision to launch an unprecedented pre-emptive invasion of Iraq and to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. In still larger measure, the attention given this book since snippets of its content began to leak late last week is justified by the work itself. “Plan of Attack” is a remarkable book, one that fulfills the too often ephemeral promise of what has come to be called investigative journalism. What Woodward has delivered is not so much a first draft of history, but history in real time. Other writers and scholars proceeding at a more deliberative pace surely will add vital details and illuminating insights to this account, but each will just as surely take this book as their starting point. The American people seldom have been given this clear a window on their government’s most sensitive deliberations with the opportunity to pass judgment on what they see still before them in November. Anyone who goes to the polls without familiarizing themselves with this books contents and forming an opinion about their significance risks dereliction in the exercise of their franchise. Readers will find it necessary to draw their own conclusions about this story’s implications because of Woodward’s scrupulous adherence to certain journalistic conventions.

This is a narrative rich in exotic detail and vivid characterizations, but virtually devoid of judgments. Many will find that frustrating; others will agree that reporters necessarily forswear their right to judge so that others may truly exercise theirs. Moreover, while “Plan of Attack” has a propulsive narrative structure, Woodward’s prose can charitably be described as utilitarian. (Any one who has followed the respective careers of Woodward and Carl Bernstein since their collaboration on the compellingly written “All the President’s Men” by now has formed a pretty clear notion of Woodstein’s division of labor.) Last weekend, The Washington Post, where Woodward is an assistant managing editor, published extensive excerpts from the book. Before and since its official release Monday, the author has been a ubiquitous television and Internet presence. Thus, “Plan of Attack’s” most newsworthy revelations are, by now, fairly well known: -- On Nov. 21, 2001, long before he ostensibly decided on war, Bush instructed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to update contingency plans for an attack on Iraq. -- At least $700 million in funds appropriated by Congress after 9/11 for the war against al-Qaida and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan were diverted without legislative approval to finance preparations for an attack on Saddam. -- Bush’s cabinet was divided between Secretary of State Colin Powell and his aides, who opposed war, and Vice President Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld and his circle of neo-conservative advisors, who came into office spoiling for another go at Iraq. -- On Saturday, Jan. 11, 2003 Cheney, Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, met with Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, and showed him essential details of the war plan. Bandar’s principle concern seemed to be that, this time around, the Americans wouldn’t kill Saddam. Cheney assured the prince that the Iraqi strongman was “toast.” Bandar casually mentioned the Saudis’ hope to increase oil production so as to hold gas prices down before the election. He requested and received a subsequent meeting with the president himself. Secretary of State Powell had yet to hear of the plans for war. For an administration that has prided itself on its internal discipline and lack of leaks, Bush’s government has spawned an unusual number of astonishingly detailed “insider” books. (It’s almost as if some pent up demand that would not be denied ultimately produced a tsunami of disclosure.) First came Woodward’s own best-selling “Bush at War,” which portrayed the post-9/11 president as an unexpectedly resolute and sober leader. The chief executive’s satisfaction with that portrait lead him to suggest this new volume to Woodward and to make himself available for an unusual series of taped on-the-record interviews.

Continues on the following page.