The White House's ‘State of Denial’

Mitchell: What happened when Andy Card tried to get Rumsfeld to send the National Guard to New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina?

Woodward: Andy Card talked to the president and said, "Yes, I want these units sent to New Orleans. This is what we're going to do." And when Card presented that information directly to Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld said, "Well, I don't work for you. I work for the president.  He's going to have to tell me himself."

Mitchell: He didn't take a directive from the Chief of Staff to send the National Guard that were so needed in New Orleans because it hadn't come from George W. Bush?

Woodward: That's right. Because Rumsfeld said the chain of command — and he's right about this — is the president to Rumsfeld to the commanders in the field. But he wouldn't do it. And then Card just kind of threw up his hands and then, later, Bush said to him, "Hey, I thought you were going to take care of that." He called Don and — Card just said, "Well, apparently, he wanted to hear it from you." Because Rumsfeld had called the president directly.

Mitchell: To make sure that it, in fact, needed to be done.  Whatever.

Woodward: Whatever. I mean, that's what — you know, that's the strength of Rumsfeld and it's also probably his weakness. It's this dominance, this  sense of it's got to be my way.

Mitchell: Andy Card tried at least three times over the course of 18 months to get the president to, quote, replace Rumsfeld.

Woodward: That's correct.

Mitchell: What happened?

Woodward: You know, Card was getting word from Republicans and Democrats, people on The Hill, others on the White House staff how difficult it was to deal with Rumsfeld. And he proposed -- I think -- he had in his "hit-by-the-bus book," which was the list of replacements for top jobs, 11 people. But he specifically recommended Jim Baker, the former Secretary of State, former Treasury Secretary and a Bush senior political mentor.  Said directly to Bush: "My quiet counsel is put Baker in there. Put a diplomat in that position."

Mitchell: And what happened?

Woodward: The president said, "Interesting." People talked to Cheney, including the president, including Card and the answer was no.

Mitchell: So Andy Card's talked with us. And he did not dispute any of the quotations in the book. But he says you got the context wrong. That the context was that he was, over a course of months, talking about all cabinet and staff changes.

Woodward: I call it a campaign. I talked to Card since the book has come out and he has repeated what he said to you. He disputes not a single quote. And it's not so much the context. Said, "Well, it wasn't a campaign."  And I said, "Look, three times you go to the president and make specific recommendations. You have at least two conversations with the first lady about this, who's upset and concerned. You encourage chief speech writer, Michael Gerson to go to the president and recommend that he replace Rumsfeld with Joe Lieberman, a senator from Connecticut. Now that's a campaign in my view. And two others I talked to who were involved in this -- it was a campaign. It was a deep worry that Rumsfeld is hurting the president, hurting the war effort and that there's such a break down in real communications with the uniformed military. This is so serious that there are four-star generals on active duty who confirmed to me quotes about telling senators that Rumsfeld has emasculated the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

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