'Plan of Attack' by Bob Woodward.

P.10: Bush sauntered in like Cool Hand Luke, flapping his arms slightly, cocky but seeming ill at ease.

P.11: The JCS staff had placed a peppermint at each place. Bush unwrapped his and popped it into his mouth. Later he eyed Cohen's mint and flashed a pantomime query. Do you want that? Cohen signaled no, so Bush reached over and took it. Near the end of the hour-and-a-quarter briefing, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Army General Henry 'Hugh' Shelton, noticed Bush eyeing his mint, so he passed it over.

P. 19: Two months into the job [as SecDef], Rumsfeld drafted a three-page memo called 'Guidelines When Considering Committing U.S. Forces'. He took the fourth revision to the President and went over it in detail. It was a series of questions to be addressed: 'Is a proposed action truly necessary?' 'Is the proposed action achievable?' 'Is it worth it?'.

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 lot easier to get into something than it is to get out of it!".

"You Title X motherf*ckers! Let me tell you something. At the end of the day, combatants, and the's either me or the boss I work for [Rumsfeld] are going to put together a joint and combined operation..."