President George W. Bush's former chief of staff tried twice to persuade the US leader to fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld but failed, The Washington Postreported yesterday, citing a new book by investigative reporter Bob Woodward.
Mr Woodward wrote that White House chief of staff Andrew Card urged Bush to replace Rumsfeld with former Secretary of State James Baker following the 2004 election, the Post reported on its Web site.
Mr Bush decided not to do so after Vice President Dick Cheney and political adviser Karl Rove convinced him the move would be seen as an expression of doubt about the direction of the war and expose him to criticism, according to the book. Card, with the backing of first lady Laura Bush, tried a second time to persuade Mr Bush to fire Mr Rumsfeld around Thanksgiving 2005, the book says. But the president again refused to act.
The book raises more questions about the administration's handling of the Iraq war only days after a government intelligence report was disclosed suggesting the war was doing more to endanger US security rather than bolster it.
The book, written by the Post assistant managing editor well known for his role in forcing President Richard Nixon to resign in 1974 in the Watergate scandal, put the Bush White House on the defensive.
White House press secretary Tony Snow was besieged by questions at his daily briefing and said he had been unable to reach Card, who resigned as chief of staff in March of this year.
A group of top Senate Democrats promptly renewed calls for Mr Rumsfeld's resignation. "We believe, many of us, that he has to go and we are going to be renewing our efforts in a number of ways to urge the president to find a new secretary of defense," Senator Charles Schumer of New York said on Capitol Hill. Woodward's new book, "State of Denial," is his third about the administration since the September 11 attacks.
It is scheduled for release next week. While the earlier books were criticized by some as painting Mr Bush as a hero, the current work portrays senior administration officials as being unable to face the consequences of their Iraq policy, the Post reported.
The book says officials in the White House and the Pentagon voiced concern about the conduct of the war and the conflict in Iraq in reports and internal memos, even as Bush, Rumsfeld and other senior officials insisted publicly the situation was going well.