"The Bush-Rumsfeld-Franks work remained secret for months and when partial disclosures made their way into the media the next year, the president, Rumsfeld and others in the administration, attempting to defuse any sense of immediacy, spoke of contingency planning and insisted that war plans were not on the president's desk." Prologue, pg. 3

"Rumsfeld argued for being clear-eyed. One passage foreshadowed problems to come: 'In fashioning a clear statement of the underpinning for the action, avoid arguments of convenience. They can be useful at the outset to gain support, but they will be deadly later.' He also had written, 'U.S. leadership must be brutally honest with itself, the Congress, the public and coalition partners.' And he added, 'It is a great deal easier to get into something than it is to get out of it!"' Chapter 1, pg. 19

"Rumsfeld was going to tune up the war...