Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s consultant, Steve Herbits, told Rumsfeld on December 5, 2002, regarding Iraq: ” ‘…you are in the unique position of being the sole person who could lose the president’s [Bush’s] reelection for him if you don’t get something straightened out.’ …Herbits continued, ‘…you have got to focus on the post-Iraq planning. It is so screwed up. We will not be able to win the peace.’ ”
– Bob Woodward, State of Denial, Page 103