The Bush administration’s spying targets now apparently include the Iraqi government. A new book by veteran journalist Bob Woodward says the White House has run an extensive spy program on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and several other Iraqi officials. Referring to Maliki, a White House source told Woodward, “We know everything he says.” Woodward also reports an October 2006 Iraq policy review was held in secret and without military involvement to avoid public scrutiny before the mid-term elections. Administration officials were said to be concerned news coverage would damage Republican candidates. National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley led the review. He reportedly told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, “We’ve got to do it under the radar screen because the electoral season is so hot.” Woodward also quotes from several interviews with President Bush. Bush told Woodward he let Stephen Hadley oversee the change in war strategy, at one point saying, “I’m not in these meetings, you’ll be happy to hear, because I got other things to do.” Woodward also says the former top US general in Iraq, General George Casey, privately blamed Bush for US troubles in Iraq. Casey reportedly told a colleague he believes Bush reflects “the radical wing of the Republican Party that kept saying, 'Kill the bastards! Kill the bastards! And you’ll succeed.'” Woodward also reports of a consensus amongst some US officials that the drop in violence in Iraq is not the result of the so-called troop “surge” that began last year. Instead, officials told Woodward the primary factor was covert techniques used to locate and kill insurgent leaders. Other Iraq specialists, like the journalist Nir Rosen, have attributed the drop in violence to extensive ethnic cleansing that has left fewer people to kill.