WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has conducted an extensive spying operation on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, his staff and others in the Iraqi government, according to a new book by Washington Post Associate Editor Bob Woodward.

"We know everything he says," according to one of multiple sources whom Mr. Woodward cites about the practice in "The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008," scheduled for release Monday.

The book also says the U.S. troop "surge" of 2007, in which President Bush sent nearly 30,000 additional U.S. combat forces and support troops to Iraq, was not the primary factor behind the steep drop in violence there during the past 16 months.

Rather, Mr. Woodward reports, "groundbreaking" new covert techniques enabled U.S. military and intelligence officials to locate, target and kill insurgent leaders and key individuals in extremist groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq. Mr. Woodward does not provide much detail about this, saying in the book that White House and other officials cited national security concerns in asking him to withhold specifics.

Overall, Mr. Woodward writes, four factors combined to reduce the violence: the covert operations; the influx of troops; the decision by militant cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to rein in his powerful Mahdi Army; and the so-called Anbar Awakening, in which tens of thousands of Sunnis turned against al-Qaida in Iraq and allied with U.S. forces.

The book is Mr. Woodward's fourth to examine the inner debates of the Bush administration and its handling of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The 487-page book concentrates on Mr. Bush's leadership and governing style, based on more than 150 interviews with the president's national security team, senior deputies and other key intelligence, diplomatic and military players. Woodward also conducted two on-the-record interviews with Mr. Bush in May.

The book portrays an administration riven by dissension, either unwilling or slow to confront the deterioration of its Iraq strategy during the summer and early fall of 2006. Publicly, Mr. Bush claimed that U.S. forces were "winning"; privately, he believed that the long-term strategy of training Iraq forces and handing over responsibility to the new government was failing.

Eventually, Mr. Woodward writes, the president lost confidence in the two military commanders overseeing the war at the time: Gen. George W. Casey Jr., commander of coalition forces in Iraq, and Gen. John P. Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command.

The quality and credibility of information about the war's progress became a source of ongoing tension within the administration, according to the book. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice complained about the Defense Department's "overconfident" briefings during the tenure of Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Rather than receiving options on the war, Mr. Bush would get "a fable, a story ... that skirted the real problems," Ms. Rice is quoted as saying.

According to Mr. Woodward, Mr. Bush maintained an odd detachment from the war policy reviews in this period, turning much of the process over to national security adviser Stephen Hadley. "Let's cut to the chase," he told Mr. Woodward, "Hadley drove a lot of this."

In response to a question about how the White House settled on a troop surge of five brigades after the military leadership in Washington had reluctantly said it could provide two, Mr. Bush said: "I don't know this. I'm not in these meetings, you'll be happy to hear, because I got other things to do."

Mr. Woodward also depicts the development of a close working relationship between Mr. Bush and Mr. Maliki, with the president leaning on the Iraqi leader to govern evenhandedly and take decisive action against sectarianism.

Given Mr. Bush's efforts to earn Mr. Maliki's trust, the surveillance of the Iraqi prime minister caused some consternation among several senior U.S. officials, who questioned whether it was worth the risk, Mr. Woodward reports.

Iraqi leaders yesterday expressed incredulity and disappointment over a report that U.S. officials had spied on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other top Iraqi leaders.

"If it is true, it reflects that there is no trust, and it reflects also that the institutions in the United States are used to spying on their friends and their enemies in the same way," Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement. "We will raise this with the American side, and we will ask for an explanation."

White House press secretary Dana Perino declined to comment on whether the administration had spied on Mr. Maliki.