The book that first revealed President Bush's covert domestic spying program, "State Of War" (by New York Times reporter James Risen) examines U.S. intelligence-gathering under the current administration, identifying crucial failures relating to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and more.
Critic Reviews
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Outstanding
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Publishers Weekly
Lucid, balanced and brimming with surprises, this is a-to borrow a notorious phrase-slam dunk exposé of the CIA's recent snafus...Risen has written a thrilling, depressing and worrying book.
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Favorable
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Los Angeles Times Tim Rutten
A damning and dismaying book...An urgent contribution to the country's common good by a skillful and courageous reporter.
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Favorable
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The New York Times James Bamford
But while State of War has interesting and important new details, it also has almost no named sources - not even the comments of former intelligence or government officials, who might provide perspective, context and credibility. It is an unusual move for someone writing about such an important subject. Nevertheless, obtaining details on an eavesdropping program as secret as the one discussed in State of War is a monumental job of reporting.
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Favorable
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The New York Times Book Review Walter Isaacson
It is riveting, anonymously sourced and feels slightly overdramatized, but it has the odious smell of truth.
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Favorable
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The Guardian Jay Parini
One reads books like these with growing dismay.
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Mixed
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New York Observer Fred Kaplan
The book, though dry, is at least short, lucid and ceaselessly revelatory. Mr. Risen constructs more - and more hair-raising - skeletons with his bare-bones stories than any number of meatier, you-are-there wind-wheezers. [23 Jan 2006, p.19]
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Mixed
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The New Yorker
This account doesn’t go much beyond what has been in the Times - indeed, follow-ups have overtaken it - but Risen offers a useful perspective on what the C.I.A. has been doing since September 11th, and some devastating summary judgments.
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Mixed
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Daily Telegraph Frances Stonor Saunders
[Risen] drills in the right places, guided by insiders with privileged access to the secrets of power. Unfortunately, his sources have all spoken to him on condition of anonymity - they are unnamed, unidentifiable. Anonymity (pace, Deep Throat) can never be a serious challenge to plausible deniability, behind which the President and all his men continue to hide.
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Mixed
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The Independent Raymond Whitaker
Some of the detail about power games in Washington will seem tedious to British readers, but Risen sheds new light on how "hustlers and fabricators" were embraced if their information served the cause of war, while genuine intelligence was ignored.
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Mixed
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Salon Farhad Manjoo
Compelling, disturbing, if ultimately somewhat unfulfilling...The trouble is, for all the news in State of War, you can't help feeling there's an even bigger story in what's not here. Risen's astounding findings are, for the most part, just skeletons of disaster and doom; in many cases, limitations inherent to national security journalism -- spymasters like to keep mum -- kept him from learning many of the details surrounding the programs he uncovers, and his account is often incomplete.
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Mixed
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New York Review Of Books Thomas Powers
Inconvenient evidence that angers policymakers and threatens careers cannot be pushed under the rug by intelligence officers unless they are fully aware of each step in the series— they know it is evidence, they know it is inconvenient, they know it will anger policymakers, they know their careers will be threatened, and they know they are pushing evidence in the direction of a rug. James Risen is not willing to go so far. His book is filled with evidence supporting this interpretation, but he seems reluctant to embrace it.
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Unfavorable
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Slate Daniel Benjamin
In State of War, Risen is again in attack mode, and his adversarial perspective leads him to miss the bigger, and more mixed, picture... None of these intelligence "successes" gets serious attention in State of War, an inexplicable omission in a book on the CIA. The effect is to cast doubt on Risen's accounts of intelligence screw-ups, even those that sound persuasive and deserve to be taken seriously.
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