WASHINGTON, Nov 16: The CIA gave tens of millions of dollars to Afghan warlords to gain crucial support for President George Bush’s campaign to bring down the Taliban last year, according to a new book.

The book, “Bush at War”, also highlights grave doubts about the early course of the war in Afghanistan and tensions over Afghanistan and Iraq within Bush’s administration.

Sections of the book by Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward — which includes lengthy interviews with the US president — were reported on Saturday by the newspaper.

The book says there were major doubts during the early stages of the war by a US-led coalition against the Taliban, when US jets were bombing militia targets while the opposition Northern Alliance led the ground assault.

At one stage, the US Defence Department drew up plans to send 50,000 troops into Afghanistan.

“At a climactic meeting in the Situation Room two weeks into the campaign, Bush went around the table demanding that his aides affirm their support for the strategy,” the book says, according to The Washington Post.

“Don’t let the press panic us,” Bush was quoted as saying, and each aide pledged allegiance without answering his calls for an alternative strategy.

The book says the Central Intelligence Agency spent 70 million dollars in direct cash outlays in Afghanistan, which also included some money to set up field hospitals.

“That’s one bargain,” Bush told Woodward in an interview last August, according to the Post.

About half a dozen CIA teams handed out the cash in hundred-dollar bills to Afghan warlords across the stricken Asian country. The first landed in Afghanistan on Sept 27 of last year, with the team leader carrying three million dollars in cash in an attache case.

“Bush at War” draws on four hours of interviews with the president and also cites meetings of the National Security Council and other White House gatherings on the US military action in Afghanistan and the decision to confront Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

The Washington Post said the book describes in detail Secretary of State Colin Powell’s clashes with Vice President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over Iraq, and his efforts to convince the president that there could not be military action without international support.

Over the objections of Cheney and Rumsfeld, Powell ultimately succeeded in persuading Bush to seek a resolution from the United Nations.

The book told how the centrist Powell and Bush struggled to establish a relationship and how the secretary of state finally made the case for international action during an Aug 5 dinner.—AFP