Bush Zeroes In
In, Bush Zeroes
Bush Zeroes In Ignore the domestic head fakes. He's focused like a laser on Iraq. BY FRED BARNES WHY THE HEAD FAKE by the White House? Why the chatter from aides suggesting Iraq would not be the...
...Three days later, a copy of the Post was still on a desk in his secretary's office next to the Oval Office...
...Why the chatter from aides suggesting Iraq would not be the focus of President Bush's State of the Union address...
...He feels Schroder personally betrayed him by exploiting anti-Americanism in his reelection campaign last year...
...Bush responded, "Your English is very good...
...And he faults Chirac for joining Schroder in opposition to Bush on Iraq for domestic political and commercial reasons—and for not informing Bush before announcing he was jumping ship...
...When the president met over lunch with TV news anchors on the day of the State of the Union speech, he said Saddam has "tortured, maimed and killed people...
...There was great angst," the senior official says...
...phone these days, but not Schroder or Chirac...
...I have never the time . . . to learn better English...
...He is a foreign policy realist...
...No need to worry...
...It's on his heart, his mind, his agenda...
...Bush said of his friend Blair, "I trust his judgment and his wisdom...
...This threat is imminent and must be granted a higher priority than cutting taxes and reforming Medicare, important as those initiatives are...
...There are "two key issues that face our world today," terrorism and WMDs, he said...
...They were behind the letter signed by eight European leaders and sent to the Wall Street Journal and European newspapers backing the United States on Iraq...
...address, "clarity came to the situation...
...We really fear that after the series of terrorist attacks, which culminated with the attacks of September 11, there is the intention of the terrorists to really come to a terrible disaster," he told reporters at a photo opportunity...
...Bush's new favorites are prime ministers Jose Maria Aznar of Spain and Silvio Berlusconi of Italy...
...America, Berlusconi said, is "the best friend of my country...
...The prestige press was against intervention in Iraq and treated Bush as "way off base...
...It led to a stronger resolution on Iraq than expected and to new inspections...
...He talks to many European leaders on the Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...For Bush, "this is an ongoing war," an aide says...
...No, no," the prime minister said...
...The first part of the speech dragged, but when he got to terrorism and Iraq he spoke with more drama and emotion...
...It's what animates him," an aide says...
...And he believes that there's a unique opportunity now to turn nations into democracies...
...Any White House head fakes to the contrary should be ignored...
...What's striking is how different Bush's concerns are from his father's during and after the war in 1991 against Saddam...
...Why the insistence that reporters would be asking about matters other than Iraq the day after the president's speech...
...And to do so, they have to avail themselves of the biological, chemical weapons that we know were available to Saddam Hussein...
...My guess is there's worry Bush might suffer the fate of his father, losing reelection because voters feel he's indifferent to fixing a weak economy...
...We should realize those two threats are not different, they're linked...
...His passion about Iraq and democracy was evident in his delivery of the State of the Union...
...He is appalled at the murderous nature of Saddam's dictatorship and frustrated that some other leaders aren't as horrified...
...Bush likens the past two months, when popular support for regime change in Iraq was drifting down-ward—and his job performance rating was declining—to the period in the late summer of 2002 leading up to his September 12 speech at the United Nations...
...Iraq colors his view of foreign leaders...
...As best one can tell, Bush has internalized the case against Saddam...
...That, plus fear Bush is seen as not merely alarmed about Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) but downright obsessed with uprooting Saddam Hussein...
...This is what he wants to talk about...
...One of Bush's favorite words is "prioritize," and that's what he's doing quite properly on Iraq...
...According to a senior administration official, Bush believes that once Iraq is liberated Schroder and Chirac and their countrymen will regret "in their soul" that they didn't take part in "freeing people from repression...
...help, Bush is an updated version of Woodrow Wilson...
...Bush senior left Saddam in power and Iraq intact, all in the name of stability, and exited quickly...
...In the speech, he said Saddam has left "thousands of his own citizens dead, blind, or disfigured...
...However, in his vision of a new world where democracy is triumphant with major U.S...
...More important, Berlusconi sounded like Bush with an Italian accent in spelling out the danger posed by Iraq...
...But with the president's U.N...
...He echoed Berlusconi...
...But Bush junior is an idealist who wants to spread democracy and freedom and make sure other hostile countries rid themselves of WMDs or don't acquire them in the first place...
...It's become a cliche to say Bush is more like Ronald Reagan politically and ideologically than his father...
...After the September 11 terrorist attacks and the victory in Afghanistan, Iraq became the next logical step in the war on terrorism...
...The next day Bush's closest ally, British prime minister Tony Blair, visited Bush at Camp David...
...When Berlusconi visited the White House last week, Bush referred to him, without irony, as "my friend Silvio...
...Bush, by the way, loved the New York Post's frontpage picture of the two with the headline: "AXIS OF WEASEL...
...Bush believes September 11 revealed Saddam now has a delivery vehicle to reach the United States with his WMDs—not intercontinental missiles but al Qaeda terrorists who've proven their ability to slip into the United States...
...The truth, of course, is that Bush can handle all three at once, though Iraq takes more of his time, and should...
...Three other nations later asked to sign...
...Stability is not his overriding concern...
...Bush thinks it's coming again, which is one reason why, in his prioritizing, Iraq stays at the top of the list...
...They traded bouquets...
...The senior official characterized Bush's view this way: "The thought of people living under the barbaric hand of this guy . . . there doesn't seem to be much concern about the Iraqi people," particularly by Schroder and Chirac...
...Despite strong dissent in his own Labour party, Blair is following Winston Churchill's advice never to let the English get separated from the Americans...
...Bush is far from forgiving German chancellor Gerhard Schroder and French president Jacques Chirac for abandoning him on Iraq...
Vol. 8 • February 2003 • No. 21
