The One Percent Doctrine: Vice President Cheney Completely Controls US Foreign Policy and No One Even Bothers to Deny It.

The major revelation in Suskind’s book is that of the cyanide gas poisoning plot that was to cripple the New York subway system before the al-Qaeda higher-ups decided it was a non-starter. The administration has taken much credit for this twist of fate as well as others documented herein. The problem is that most of these “victories” have turned out to be lucky accidents of intercepted information. The Bush anti-terrorism program has largely exhibited a buffet of miscoordination and broken lines of authority (and also pure ignorance).

It’s Cheney who is and always has been in the driver’s seat in this administration. That much is made clear in the opening paragraphs. The Vice-President makes it clear that if there is 1/100 chance that a new terrorist attack will occur (and be sponsored by a foreign government) then that 1% chance should be treated as a certainty. Thus, the book’s title.

That was the Cheney policy and that was what led us into war with Iraq and during all of it George W. Bush was largely silent. Indeed, this book takes great pains to remind the reader that GEORGE W. BUSH HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON. It is almost painful to read the accounts of early national security meetings when Bush and Cheney played Laurel and Hardy. It is hard to believe that this sort of incompetence obtains at these high levels. It is also somewhat frightening. The image of Bush cowering behind “Uncle Dick” – and at the same time asking him not to undermine his authority in national security meetings – is hilariously funny until the queasy reality sets in. And then there is nothing funny at all. It is all stranger than fiction and scary as hell.

The liberals amongst us will take to this tract like ducks to water but more important questions loom. Why was Iraq targeted when other rogue states posed far greater threats? We are now seeing the emergence of actors like Hezbollah and North Korea who present real, well nigh unpredictable threats. Why have these been ignored and downplayed? Only Cheney knows.

And Cheney will never tell. So much of the current US long-term strategy in the middle east and central Asia is tied up with economic concerns stretching through Haliburton and the CIA and the British government and the Mossad and the bad debts racked up by Enron and the American thirst for oil and electricity. We as citizens will be paying for these decisions for two generations and yet we do not know on what basis these decisions were made. It is unlikely we ever will know. But Cheney knows. “The One Percent Doctrine,” after all, makes that abundantly clear.

For anyone still wondering, or still wringing their hands, over the shaky justification that led us to war in Iraq “The 1% Doctrine” is instructive reading. For those who’ve lost loved ones in the Middle East this book is very nearly indigestible