President George W. Bush's memoir, "Decision Points," hit bookstores on Tuesday. "Like most presidential memoirs, W.'s is generic and unsurprising," wrote Jonathan Yardley in Monday's Washington Post. "It's competent, readable and flat."

Although reviewers say it contains "no 'news' of any real significance," some interesting points worth noting, most especially about Syria and waterboarding:

Bush wrote that he received an intelligence report about a "suspicious, well-hidden facility in the eastern desert of Syria" that looked similar to a nuclear facility at Yongbyon, North Korea. This prompted suspicions that Syria was trying to develop a weapons program with North Korean help.

Bush said he considered ordering a US military strike against a suspected Syrian nuclear facility at Israel's request in 2007, but ultimately opted against it. Israel eventually destroyed the facility, which Syria denied was aimed at developing a nuclear weapons capability.

Shortly afterward, he spoke by phone with then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

"George, I'm asking you to bomb the compound," Olmert told Bush, according to the book.

Bush said he discussed options with his National Security team. A bombing mission was considered "but bombing a sovereign country with no warning or announced justification would create severe blowback," he wrote.

Bush said he told Olmert, "I cannot justify an attack on a sovereign nation unless my intelligence agencies stand up and say it's a weapons program."

Olmert was disappointed by Bush's decision to recommend a strategy of using diplomacy backed up by the threat of force to deal with Syria over the facility.

"Your strategy is very disturbing to me," Olmert told Bush, according to the book.

Bush denies charges that he gave a "green light" for Israel to attack the installation.

"Prime Minister Olmert hadn't asked for a green light and I hadn't given one. He had done what he believed was necessary to protect Israel," Bush wrote.

The book also reveals that Bush was asked to approve a tough interrogation technique known as waterboarding on Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he wasted little time in deciding.

"Damn right," he said.

Bush's approval of waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning condemned by human rights activists as torture, to try to wrench information from captured Al-Qaeda operatives was among the most controversial decisions he made during eight years in the White House.

Bush strongly defends the use of waterboarding as critical to his efforts to prevent a repeat of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. He says waterboarding was limited to three detainees and led to intelligence breakthroughs that thwarted attacks.

He writes that his ability to prevent another Sept. 11 attack on US soil was "my most meaningful accomplishment."

Waterboarding, which human rights groups contend is illegal under the Geneva Conventions, was banned by Bush's successor, President Barack Obama, shortly after taking office in 2009. Interrogators are now required to follow interrogation guidelines laid out in the US Army Field Manual.

While critics argue that Bush's book is an attempt to write history before the historians write it, the former president does acknowledge that he made mistakes on the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction: "I had sent American troops into combat based in large part on intelligence that proved false."

But he continues to insist, as do many veterans of the Bush Administration, that "the world was undoubtedly safer with Saddam gone," a claim that, in light of Middle East current affairs, certainly merits discussion.

There is no criticism of President Obama in Bush's book, and he praises Obama for his more-aggressive policy on Afghanistan, for his "smart, disciplined, high-tech campaign" in 2008, and for the "calm demeanor" Obama displayed at a special White House meeting during the financial crisis in September of that year.

As for Sen. John McCain, who'd insisted on that White House meeting though he had little to offer there, that's a different story. The book reveals a Bush-McCain relationship that has had some very difficult moments dating back to the South Carolina Republican presidential primary in 2000.

Also, in Decision Points, Bush wrote about his decision to commute the sentence of Scooter Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, who was convicted of perjury and other charges for his role in the Valerie Plame leak. According to Bush, Cheney was "angry" that Bush didn't grant Libby a full pardon.

Cheney confronted him and said, "I can't believe you're going to leave a soldier on the battlefield."

"Scooter is a loyal American ... I felt he had paid enough of a penalty," Bush told NBC's Matt Lauer in the first interview of his book tour. "I let the jury verdict stand after some serious deliberation, and the vice president was angry."

Bush also said he was worried his friendship with Cheney would suffer, but said he's "pleased to report we are friends today."