The Commanders pdf

Robert Upshur Woodward (born March 26, 1943) is an American investigative journalist. He started working for The Washington Post as a reporter in 1971 and now holds the title of associate editor.While a young reporter for The Washington Post in 1972, Woodward teamed up with Carl Bernstein, and the two did much of the original news reporting on the Watergate scandal. These scandals led to numerous government investigations and the eventual resignation of President Richard Nixon. The work of Woodward and Bernstein was called "maybe the single greatest reporting effort of all time" by longtime journalism figure Gene Roberts.Woodward continued to work for The Washington Post after his reporting on Watergate. He has written 21 books on American politics and current affairs, 13 of which have topped best-seller lists. Woodward was born in Geneva, Illinois, the son of Jane (née Upshur) and Alfred E. Woodward, a lawyer who later became chief judge of the 18th Judicial Circuit Court. He was raised in nearby Wheaton, Illinois, and educated at Wheaton Community High School (WCHS), a public high school in the same town.His parents divorced when he was twelve, and he and his brother and sister were raised by their father, who subsequently remarriedAfter being discharged as a lieutenant in August 1970, Woodward was admitted to Harvard Law School but elected not to attend. Instead, he applied for a job as a reporter for The Washington Post while taking graduate courses in Shakespeare and international relations at George Washington University. Harry M. Rosenfeld, the Post's metropolitan editor, gave him a two-week trial but did not hire him because of his lack of journalistic experience. After a year at the Montgomery Sentinel, a weekly newspaper in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, Woodward was hired as a Post reporter in 1971.

The Commanders pdf by Bob Woodward

It is impossible to examine any part of the war on terrorism in the twenty-first century without seeing the hand of Dick Cheney, Colin Powell or one of their loyalists. The Commanders, an account of the use of the military in the first Bush administration, is in many respects their story the intimate account of the tensions, disagreements and debates on the road to war.
"During my 30 years of reporting and book writing, I have found that
journalism and public discussion too often turn to the future, which we can’t know, rather than the past, which we can. The coordinated terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 that killed nearly 5,000 people in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania will likely mark a pivot point in history. President George W. Bush has declared what he says will be a prolonged war on terrorism, and as I write, the initial phase of that war has begun against Afghanistan. The Gulf War of 1991 was the last time this country was in a major war. Two of the men at the epicenter then were Dick Cheney, then Secretary of Defense, and Colin Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military man. Together they effectively ran that war. In the current war on terrorism, Cheney, now the Vice President, and Powell, now the Secretary of State, are the only war veterans with previous service in senior roles. The others, including President George W. Bush, have never been tested in the crucible of war. Cheney and Powell have lived in that crucible."