The head of the CIA was furious that he had never pushed Bill Clinton or George Bush for the authority to assassinate Osama bin Laden. And five days after September 11, the US Government’s War Cabinet was singing Old Man River while the President struggled with a giant jigsaw puzzle.

Washington is abuzz with the latest book by Bob Woodward, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist renowned for his role in uncovering the Watergate scandal, which records in extraordinary detail the account of President Bush and his advisers as they struggled to engage an Afghan enemy in a new kind of war.

But in Bush At War, Woodward, a master at instant-history narratives of Washington decision-making, has astounded even his greatest admirers by tempting nearly every key player in the War Cabinet to give his side of the story. Even Mr Bush agreed to four hours of on-the-record interviews, and the author gained access to 15,000 words of National Security Council minutes.

Some come out of the account better than others. Mr Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, during often rambling and unfocused War Cabinet meetings, comes across as irascible and unhappy that the early stages of the war were dominated by the CIA, with the Pentagon stumbling behind.

“There was nothing on the shelf (an Afghanistan war plan) that could be pulled down to provide at least an outline,” Mr Woodward writes.

At one point when the Afghan campaign seemed bogged down, Mr Rumsfeld boiled over during a meeting at the White House. “This is the CIA’s strategy . . . you guys are in charge . . . we’re just following you in,” he shouts.

The outburst also reflected that the war marked the first time in US history that the CIA and US Army were fighting a campaign side by side. After the meeting, Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush’s National Security Adviser, pulled Mr Rumsfeld aside and said: “Don, this is now a military operation and you really have to be in charge.”

Ms Rice, who Mr Bush says is “constantly mother-henning me”, emerges as a pivotal figure, an honest broker of the minutely detailed frictions between Colin Powell, the dovish Secretary of State, and the hawkish Mr Rumsfeld and Mr Cheney, the Vice-President. Mr Woodward also reveals that General Powell refused to run for the presidency in 2000 because his wife, Alma, said she would leave him if he did so.

Some detail is touching. Three days after September 11, Ms Rice returned to her flat in Watergate (she had been sleeping in the White House bunker for safety). She switched on a television for the first time since the hijackings and watched as the Star-Spangled Banner was being played outside Buckingham Palace. She broke down and wept.

In planning the Afghan war, General Powell had advised the Cabinet to “stay away from CNN”. Instantaneous battlefield coverage could create unnecessary pressure. But the TV network had its uses. On November 9, last year, reports came into the White House that Kabul had fallen.

“What does the National Security Adviser do in such a situation? She turned to CNN, which confirmed the reports,” Mr Woodward writes. Only then did Ms Rice talk to the President.

Mr Bush comes across as a strong and decisive leader. Three weeks into the Afghan campaign the US press was raising the spectre of “another Vietnam”. There were grave doubts inside the War Cabinet that they were losing the war. Ms Rice told the President that his team was wobbling.

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