Books Written on the War in Iraq and on President Bush Will Impact History

Read the Full Transcript

• JIM LEHRER:

  Finally tonight, writing history as it happens. Jeffrey Brown has our Media Unit look.

• JEFFREY BROWN:

  Philip Graham, the late publisher of the Washington Post, is often credited with calling newspapers "the first rough draft of history." These days, a walk through a bookstore suggests that reporters at Mr. Graham's paper are submitting second drafts, as well, part of a flood of new books on recent events even as those events continue to unfold.

  In the last two months alone, four reporters and editors from the Post have come out with books on the Iraq war: Thomas Ricks, a veteran military writer, authored "Fiasco"; former Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran penned "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone"; reporter and editor Karen DeYoung wrote a biography of Colin Powell called "Soldier," which deals extensively with Iraq; and Bob Woodward unleashed his third volume on the Bush White House, "State of Denial."

  Other reporters have also been busily writing on the Bush administration, Iraq, and the war on terrorism, including: New York Times chief military correspondent Michael Gordon, who collaborated with General Bernard Trainor on "Cobra II"; Newsweek correspondent Michael Isikoff co-wrote "Hubris" with the Nation magazine's David Corn; Ron Suskind, the former Wall Street Journal reporter and Pulitzer Prize-winner produced "The One-Percent Doctrine."

  Last week at a Rose Garden news conference, the president was asked about all these books and their judgments.

• DAVID JACKSON, USA Today:

  Thank you, Mr. President. You spoke of the troubles in Iraq. And, as you know, we have Woodward and we have a shelf full of books about Iraq. And many of them claim that administration policies contributed to the difficulties there. So I'm wondering, is there anything you wish you would have done differently with regard to Iraq?

  GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States: You know, speaking about books, I — somebody ought to add up the number of pages that have been written about my administration. There's a lot of books out there — you know, a lot. I don't know if I've set the record or not, but I guess it means that I've made some hard decisions and will continue to make hard decisions.

• JEFFREY BROWN:

  However the president may feel, publishers are pleased that many of these books have become bestsellers.