American Experience (1988–…): Season 32, Episode 6 - George W. Bush: Part 1 - full transcript

Tonight on
"American Experience,"

a two-night event.

He had taken office
after one of the closest

and most controversial elections
in the nation's history.

CBS News special report...

the United States Supreme Court

has reached a decision
in the case of Bush v. Gore.

His opponents claimed
he had risen to the top

only because
he was his father's son.

His life was a pattern,

and part of that pattern
was duplicating



his father's successes.

Inside the family,

I think they were
a little nervous

because they were afraid
he'd fail at it.

And he knew that,
which drove him on all the more.

He was an incredibly
disciplined candidate.

One of the best one-on-one
politicians of the modern age.

While he campaigned
as a domestic president,

he was now going to be
a wartime president.

During two terms as president,

George W. Bush would soar
to the heights of popularity...

I can hear you...

then plummet to the depths
of public disfavor.

He has been beset by so many
crises, so many challenges,



that it would have been
overwhelming

to almost anyone else.

He wanted to be a great figure
in history

and to be
on the side of the angels.

The president's virtues and
vices were one and the same.

He's the big-picture visionary

who won't pay attention
to the details when he needs to.

I hear the voices,

and I read the front page,
and I know the speculation,

but I'm the decider,
and I decide what is best.

♪ ♪

"George W. Bush."

Part one begins tonight.

Part one begins tonight.

This program contains content

which may not be suitable
for all audiences.

Viewer discretion is advised.

The cockpit's not answering.

Somebody's stabbed
in business class.

And, um, I think there is Mace.

That we can't breathe.

I don't know,
I think we're getting hijacked.

Which flight are you on?

Boston to Los Angeles.

Hello?

Nobody move, everything
will be okay.

If you try to make any moves,

you will injure yourself
and the airplane.

Just stay quiet.

We have ah, a problem here.

We have a hijacked aircraft
headed towards New York.

Is, is this real-world
or exercise?

No, this is not an exercise,
not a test.

September 11 unfolded
from clear blue skies,

perfect, cool weather
in Florida.

The president went
for an early-morning jog.

How far did you go altogether?

Four-and-a-half.

Four-and-a-half miles?

I think so.

I went down to get
into the president's motorcade,

and it was on the ride from the
hotel to the elementary school

that the first plane hit.

I remember Ari turning around
in the van and saying,

"Michael, do you know anything
about a plane

hitting the World Trade Center?"

We were just pulling up
to the school

when the first tower
had been hit.

He had a quizzical look
on his face.

"Was it bad weather?"

You know, he was a pilot...
Didn't make sense.

- Get ready!
- More!

- Yes, more!
- Get ready!

Might!
Yes, might! Get ready!

While President Bush sat

in the Emma Booker Elementary
School classroom

in Sarasota, Florida,

his staff was scrambling
for information.

At just after 9:00 a.m.,

Chief of Staff Andy Card
interrupted the reading.

The teacher told the students
to take out their books,

and I whispered
into his right ear:

"A second plane
hit the second tower.

America is under attack."

So I wrote on the back
of a yellow legal pad,

"Don't say anything yet."

I put my back to the press corps

and I flashed the card
to the president.

He made one of those little nods
like that.

Thank you, press...
if you can step out the door

- we came in, please.
- Mr. President,

are you aware of the reports
of the plane crash in New York?

We'll talk about it later.

Thank you, all...
if you could step out

the door we came in.

And then we got the press
out of the room

where the reading
was being done,

assembled in the holding room.

♪ ♪

Immediately, we have

what is commonly called
"the fog of war."

As the president's
on a secure phone,

the rest of us are working
our phones,

trying to figure out
what we can figure out,

starting to work on a statement
for the president to deliver.

It was controlled chaos
in that room,

and it was information gathering

under immense, immense pressure.

I saw a large plane, a jet,

go immediately headed directly
into the World Trade Center.

It, it just flew into it,
into the... into the other tower,

coming from south to north.

I watched the planes fly
into the World Trade Center.

We're just getting
initial reports of that.

And again, we must tell you

that we're trying to get
as much information,

but it is trickling in.

After a brief televised address,

Bush and his entourage sped
toward the Sarasota airport.

Normally, a motorcade goes,
like, 40 miles an hour.

We got on the highway,
and we were doing

85 miles an hour.

Little was said.

In the car,

Bush learned a third plane
had been hijacked,

and flown into the Pentagon.

The phone rang.

And the president picked it up
and began talking.

And I could only hear one side
of the conversation,

but I knew it was bad when
he said, "Is Rumsfeld alive?"

We got back to the airport,

and I remember seeing
Air Force One

ringed by Secret Service agents
with automatic weapons visible.

And I had never seen that
before.

I remember getting on the plane,

and I remember the plane
taking off

much more rapidly
than it usually took off

and ascending
at a very steep angle.

The president wanted to get back
to Washington.

He thought it was important
for the nation

to see the president
back in Washington.

At the same time,
it was the last thing

the Secret Service
would ever want to happen.

We did not want to bring
the president back

into what, frankly,
was a war zone.

There were F-15s
circling the White House,

armored vehicles, like tanks.

The Pentagon had blown up.

Most of the city
had been evacuated.

We didn't know
what was yet to happen.

The White House
might be a target

for such an airplane attack.

Everybody back.

In the president's absence
from Washington,

Vice President Dick Cheney
assumed operational control

of the federal government

from a secret bunker
under the White House,

where he was patched through
to Air Force One.

There were several occasions
when the vice president

was talking to the president,
and they got cut off.

The communications were,
were frustratingly primitive.

Straining to hear each other,

Bush and Cheney
discussed what to do

with planes still in the air,

some of which
were not communicating

with ground control.

Bush directed Cheney
to ground every flight

in U.S. airspace.

But one plane
did not heed the order.

United Flight 93 was not
responding to communications

and was now headed
toward Washington, DC.

After consulting with Cheney,

Bush authorized fighter jets
to shoot down United Flight 93.

It was quiet around the table,

because everybody appreciated
the gravity of that moment.

We were dispatching
the U.S. military

to shoot down
a civilian aircraft

loaded with innocent Americans.

The region commander
has declared

that we can shoot down aircraft
that do not respond

to our directions... copy that?

Copy that, sir.

Vice president has cleared.

We didn't hear anything
about what happened to it

for some time,

until eventually,
we heard that it turned out

that it was a bunch
of brave American civilians

who, who brought that plane down
on their own.

Although the president insisted
on returning to Washington,

the Secret Service
remained adamant

that it was not yet safe.

After a brief stop to refuel
in Louisiana,

Air Force One,
flying at 45,000 feet

and zig-zagging to avoid
a possible missile attack,

headed for Offutt Air Force Base
in Omaha, Nebraska.

We put him in one of the most
secure places we could,

the headquarters
of Strategic Command.

We had a video set up
so that we could talk to him,

and we could see him
walking into the bunker.

Very determined.

He sat down, and before
anybody could say anything,

he looked at us,
up on the TV screens,

and said,
"I am coming back to Washington.

"Don't argue with me.

I'm coming back... now!"

By 4:30 p.m.,

Air Force One
was headed back to Washington.

I'll never forget the images...

arriving into DC airspace
on Air Force One,

with two fighter jets so close
to our wings,

you could see the stubble
of the beard of the pilot.

And then to look down
on our nation's capital,

and it just be deserted,

and seeing smoke
billowing out of the Pentagon.

You could have heard a pin drop
on that airplane.

In all the chaos,
it was eerily silent.

Finally back at the White House,

Bush and his team readied
the most important speech

of his presidency so far,

which he would deliver
to the nation that night.

There was a lot of debate
internally

about what was
the appropriate message.

It was certainly clear
to President Bush

that his presidency
was fundamentally altered

on that day.

Two minutes.

♪ ♪

Today our fellow citizens,
our way of life...

Our very freedom...

Came under attack

in a series of deliberate
and deadly terrorist acts.

Midway through the speech,

Bush made a statement
that would lay the groundwork

for a sweeping war on terror,

shifting the course
of American foreign policy

and defining his presidency.

We will make no distinction

between the terrorists
who committed these acts

and those who harbor them.

In the span
of just over 12 hours,

a president who had been scorned
as inexperienced and unprepared,

overshadowed by his father,

and unappreciated
by the country,

had been thrust into a crisis

the likes of which
few presidents had ever faced.

He became a war president,
as he would put it.

The nation rallied
because we were attacked,

but I think the nation
also had question marks

about its nine-month-long
president at that point.

Who are you?

What will you do?

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Little in the past
of George Walker Bush

had prepared him
for the challenges

he would face after 9/11,

nor inspire much confidence
that he could rise to them.

George Bush was almost

the perfect example,
if not the wastrel,

the profligate kid,
the good-time Charlie,

the wonderfully engaging friend
and fraternity brother

that you've met
a thousand times.

What he wasn't,
at least to my mind,

was someone who would emerge
as governor of Texas

or president
of the United States.

In 1970, 24-year-old George Bush

was far
from the Washington fast track...

Often found poolside
at Chateaux Dijon,

an apartment complex catering
to the young and single,

where he lived in Houston.

He was kind of drifting,
to be honest with you.

I don't think he had a focus
on where he was heading.

I don't think he had
a regular job, you know,

that was a career path for him.

He had to figure out
what he wanted to do,

and he wasn't doing it
very quickly.

Mostly, he was drinking,
carousing, and having fun.

ROBERT McCLESKEY:
He'd drink too much,

and he could really be obnoxious
when he drank too much.

For lack of a better word,

he could be a real
ass when he drank.

♪ ♪

Bush's father,
George Herbert Walker Bush,

was a political star
in the Republican Party.

At this point, his father is

in a succession
of appointed jobs

from Richard Nixon
and Gerald Ford:

ambassador
to the United Nations,

Republican Party chairman,

ambassador to China,

and, finally, C.I.A. director.

It's a whole new realm of life

for my dad and our family.

Having been in elected politics,
you kind of deal in one area,

and now in
international politics,

it's just... I think it's just,

it's going to add
so much more breadth

to this man's life,

it's just fantastically
exciting.

He is at the height

of American government.

In diplomacy, foreign policy,

he's dealing
with weighty issues.

And back home,

his son is trying
to find himself.

Father and son
were often at odds

over W's waywardness.

The situation reached
its breaking point

during the Christmas holidays
in 1972.

After a night of heavy drinking,

Bush crashed into his
neighbor's garbage cans.

His 16-year-old brother Marvin
was in the car.

When his parents confronted him,

Bush revealed
a seething resentment,

challenging his father
to a fight.

The father was always
measuring the son,

and the measuring, of course,
is what makes it so hard

for, you know, the firstborn
of a, of a storied family.

They share a name,

they share a family,
they share a legacy.

It is possible to overstate
the level of tension there,

but it is important
to understanding who they are.

W, or Little George,
as his family called him,

was born
in New Haven, Connecticut,

on July 6, 1946,

while his father was studying
at Yale.

His father is from a family

that mixed with the Roosevelts
and the Vanderbilts

and the, and the elites
of American society.

No pressure.

Right?

But here is the inheritor
of a dynasty, in effect.

My God,

George W. Bush grows up with
this insanely accomplished dad.

He's the captain
of every team he's on,

from Yale baseball on forward.

His father was
the youngest Navy aviator

in the Pacific.

He was shot down over the ocean.

Two of his crewmates died.

He survived,
and is rescued by a submarine.

After graduating from Yale,

George H.W. Bush...

or Poppy, as he was called
in the family...

set about building up
his own fortune,

moving his wife, Barbara,
and young son from Connecticut

to Midland-Odessa, Texas,
where the oil was gushing.

This wasn't, you know,
Connecticut.

They parachuted
into a foreign country.

It was just a culture shock,
and out in far West Texas,

where people literally
were chewing tobacco,

where, literally, tumbleweeds
would come tumbling by.

♪ ♪

But Little George was
very much at home in Texas.

"The word I'd use is idyllic,"

he recalled
of his childhood home.

"When I would speak
about the American Dream,

it was Midland I had in mind."

In 1953,
tragedy would strike the family,

when Bush's
three-year-old sister Robin died

after battling leukemia.

Barbara Bush fell
into a deep depression.

His father responded
by working even harder

and not being around very much,
so it was left to George W.

To be the comfort to his mother.

He told jokes, he cracked wise,

he was trying
to get her to smile.

And it became a lifelong trait
for him, you know...

the cut-up, the class clown.

He was a bit of a scamp,
he was a bit of a troublemaker.

He got in trouble when he was
caught with a cigarette,

he got in trouble
when he crashed the family car,

when he was 14... twice.

"Georgie aggravates the hell
out of me at times,"

an exasperated Poppy
would complain.

"But then at times, I am
so proud of him, I could die."

Like all Bush boys,
George was sent to prep school

at Phillips Academy
in Massachusetts.

Unable to match
his father's exploits

on the baseball diamond,

Bush concentrated
on his social skills,

becoming head cheerleader.

Upon graduation,

he followed two previous
generations of Bushes

to Yale University.

He doesn't have
his father's history,

he doesn't have his father's
academic or athletic skills,

so he becomes
a student of people...

a student of other kids.

Well, he is a people person.

He was friendly,
warm, humorous, uh,

but had this fantastic,
genuine interest in people.

Bush spent most of his time
at Yale

drinking, socializing,

and studiously ignoring

the growing discord
in the country

over the war in Vietnam.

But by 1968, Bush's senior year,

he could no longer hold
the outside world at bay.

Bush knew that
with commencement,

he would lose
the academic deferment

that had shielded him
from the draft.

♪ ♪

In his heart of hearts, he
did not want to go to Vietnam.

But he knew damn well
that his father's next step

had been to join the military
and then become a war hero.

To avoid combat in Vietnam,

Bush joined the
147th Texas Air National Guard,

along with other sons of wealthy
and well-connected Texans.

Though Bush proved
an able pilot,

he was never tested in battle.

The 147th, it was said,
would only see action

if Oklahoma decided
to invade Texas.

Some people derisively called it
a champagne unit.

Certainly, Bush had help getting
into the National Guard.

It was a matter
of privilege and access.

Decades later,
questions would surface

whether Bush had pulled strings
to join the 147th,

and whether he left
before fulfilling his full term.

But in 1970,
he was honorably discharged,

a fighter pilot
who had never seen combat.

At each stage, you know,

he's following
his dad's footsteps.

Each stage,
never as successful as the dad.

With little direction
of his own,

Bush remained on the course
his father had set,

this time seeking his fortune
in the Texas oil fields.

After earning an MBA from
Harvard Business School in 1975,

W procured some seed money
from the family

and returned to Midland.

It was an opportunity
to duplicate

his father's success
in the oil business.

But it was also a place,
I think,

he felt comfortable immediately.

"This is who I am.

"I'm a guy
who's wearing cowboy boots.

"I'm a guy
who knows what a pumpjack is

"and can go down
to the Midland diner

and eat with anyone."

Probably was tired of...

Drifting, if that's a good term.

So he came to Midland
with a singular focus, I think.

♪ ♪

In Midland,

Bush formed
his own oil exploration company

named Arbusto,
Spanish for "bush."

He drilled across West Texas
looking for a big strike.

But as he worked to get Arbusto
off the ground,

W found himself tempted by yet
another Bush family tradition.

I'm George Bush,
running for the Congress.

I'm George Bush...

This group of conservative
Midland oil men

thought he would be
a good candidate.

They, they encouraged him
to run,

and, and he accepted
the challenge,

and he was a natural.

While it was way premature
for someone

who, relatively speaking,
just got there,

his life was a pattern,
and part of that pattern

was duplicating
the father's successes,

but at the same time
defining himself,

in the West Texas tradition,
as his own man.

♪ ♪

A few weeks
after announcing his candidacy,

Bush attended
a backyard barbecue

where a pretty, young librarian
named Laura Welch

caught his eye.

"If there is
love at first sight,"

Bush would later write,

"this was it."

McCLESKEY:
I don't know, you know,

that anybody would have put them
together at all.

They just were two totally
different personalities.

Like I say, you know,

most people that knew
both of them were surprised.

This is clearly a case
of opposites attracting...

the quiet, somewhat shy,
introverted school librarian

meets up with the
wise-cracking, rough-edged,

cowboy persona,

hard-drinking George Bush.

As he put it, she was beautiful,

she was elegant, she was smart,

and he said,
"She accepted my rough edges

and helped to smooth them."

No sooner had they married

than the couple was back out
on the road,

driving the West Texas district
from Lubbock to Abilene.

That campaign was
my first year of my marriage.

It was just like honeymooning
on the campaign trail.

I feel sure I can be
an effective congressman.

I'll listen to you,
I'll work hard for you,

and I'll introduce
and vote for legislation

that's in our best interests.

Together, we can do a lot
for West Texas.

He was running against
a Democrat named Kent Hance,

and Hance just portrayed him
as a... as an outsider,

somebody from New England,

and Bush has to prove himself
as being an authentic Texan.

We put a theme of, you know,
"I'm one of you,

and he's not."

Uh, "He's an outsider."

We tried to make it a race
of Texas Tech versus Yale.

He has to answer for it.

He has to answer
for this New England family

he's trying to escape from
in some ways.

With Poppy's help,

W's campaign broke
Texas state fundraising records,

but along with the money
came charges of nepotism.

You look at the four fundraisers
he's had,

and the fact
that his dad's there,

that definitely helps him
raise money.

It... you know,
it's amazing to me

that here we are, running
for an important position,

and we're now talking
about whether or not people

in the 19th congressional
district

are confusing me with my dad.

Although the race was closer
than anyone expected,

Bush's congressional run ended
in defeat.

He used to say

that we tried
to "good-old-boy" him to death.

Uh, we did "good-old-boy" him,
but, but I'll say this.

After the race was over,

he said he'd never be
out- "good-old-boyed" again

in the state of Texas.

After his congressional loss,

W returned to the oil business,

now suffering
through a prolonged slump.

George and Laura were also
struggling to start a family,

and had begun interviews with
a Fort Worth adoption agency.

They were well into the process

when Laura learned she was
pregnant with twin girls.

Jenna and Barbara Bush
were born in 1981,

each named after a grandmother.

With a young family
to provide for,

Bush felt ever more pressured
to make a big strike,

and ever more frustrated
by his repeated failures.

His company, some joked,

should change its name
from Arbusto to Ar-bust-o.

It's very risky.

I mean, you know,
you can be a millionaire one day

and absolutely broke
the next day.

It was always better to be
lucky than, than good.

I mean, let's face it,
he wasn't particularly lucky.

He's ranked, I think,

in the 995th-biggest oil company
in Texas

or something like that.

At one point, he says,
"I'm all name and no money."

I think his friends and family,
when he was nearly 40 years old,

were worried about what he was
going to do with his life.

He drank too much and he had
very little direction.

Feeling lost,

Bush began to attend
a weekly Bible study session

at the suggestion
of some friends.

The program was called
Community Bible Study

and was a scriptural boot camp.

He's looking for something,
right?

He's seeking out direction,
meaning, understanding.

Religion begins to give him

that definition,
that path forward.

The oil business
was up and down,

and there was a kind of
spiritual sense in Midland,

and an understanding
that things go down,

but they will go up,

and that, fundamentally,
you must have faith,

and part of that faith
was a Christian faith.

He transitioned
from a churchgoer

to a Christ follower,

and wanted to emulate

the tenets and teachings
of Jesus Christ,

and he made
a definite transformation there.

♪ ♪

Armed with a newfound faith,

Bush finally addressed
one of his lifelong demons...

Alcohol.

The decisive moment would come

after Bush's 40th
birthday party.

He woke up hungover,

he'd overdone it
the night before,

and he didn't feel good,

and I think Laura told him

that he could have
behaved better.

He just said,
"I don't need this in my life.

It's robbing me of my energy."

You know, "It's taking
too much of my time."

Well, I quit
because at times, I thought,

you know,
I like to drink too much.

Somebody said,
"Well, can you think of any day

you hadn't had a beer?"

And, uh... I couldn't.

I think another big factor is,

he didn't want to be
an embarrassment to his dad.

And it's always been
a driving force in his life.

After serving two terms

as Ronald Reagan's
vice president,

George H.W. Bush was
the G.O.P.'s leading candidate

for the
1988 presidential election.

With a White House bid
would come increased scrutiny

of the entire Bush family.

His father was gearing up
to run for president.

A bad incident by his son

would reflect terribly
on the father.

It's that fear

that helps him
finally get his act together.

He sells his oil business,
he moved to Washington,

and he joins the campaign.

And he has no title.

His dad says,

"You don't need a title,
you're my son."

Victory time!

Oh, but your hand looks good.

What time is it?

Victory time!

This is the non-political part
of this.

This is a moment that begins
to change their relationship.

His father begins
to trust his son

and give him responsibility,
knowing he can rely on him.

For W, he begins to sort of
shed some of the baggage

that had been there in the past.

George Bush is

the 41st president
of the United States.

After the '88 election,

he started talking
about who's going to go where,

who on the staff is going to go
to the inaugural committee,

who's going to go
to the White House,

and in the middle
of that conversation,

he pauses, and he says,

"What's going to happen to me?"

First child of the first family,

George Bush, Jr.!

There was sort of a push

for both him and his brother Jeb
to go into politics.

The family kind of favored Jeb.

George had been sort of
the ne'er-do-well son.

Jeb is our politician.

He's the
Republican county chairman

of Dade County, Florida... Miami.

You oughta ask Jeb,
don't skip him.

W felt overlooked
and unappreciated.

"My pool has been expanded
so much

because of who my dad is,"

Bush would tell a reporter.

"The advantage is
that everybody knows who I am.

"The disadvantage is, no matter
how great my accomplishments,

no one is going to give me
credit for them."

While his father prepared
to move into the White House,

Bush returned to Texas,
and for the first time,

set out on a course of his own.

The opportunity came up to buy
the Texas Rangers baseball team.

And there was no question,
I think, in his mind

that there was
a political calculus

in the sense
that this can't hurt.

We're fixing to build

the greatest baseball park
ever built.

He didn't have enough
to buy a baseball team,

so what he does is,

he does what he does best...
He networks.

Pulls together
tens of millions of dollars

by other people's money.

He becomes sort of
this fixture at the ballpark.

Bush, being Bush,

put on
his Texas Rangers cowboy boots,

and got a seat
not up in the box,

not where the owners
usually sit,

but down there
where the rest of the fans sat,

and that's where he was,
game after game.

It really is

the most fabulous place to watch
baseball ever built.

And he became
a really beloved figure

for the Texas Rangers.

Now Bush could say,

"I did this on my own,
I'm my own man."

There was one little other
subtle thing,

that while he was partner
with the Rangers,

he went to all 254 counties
in the state of Texas

in the name
of promoting Ranger baseball,

but he was also getting
name recognition

in all 254 counties,

and I think
that would fend him well

in any future
statewide political run.

I think that was another motive.

In 1992, Poppy's long
political career

came to an abrupt
and shocking end

with his re-election defeat

by the dynamic
Arkansas governor,

Bill Clinton.

There is important work
to be done,

and America must always
come first.

Thank you, George!
Thank you very much, look...

The loss to Bill Clinton

was a blow to the whole family.

I just don't think
they ever thought

that the war hero
George H.W. Bush,

the statesman that he was,

could lose to the Baby Boomer,
draft-dodging,

marijuana-smoking Bill Clinton.

They were devastated by it.

But as one door closes,
another door opens.

It turns out
that for George W. Bush,

this would be the door opener
for him.

Just days after
his little brother Jeb

declared his candidacy
for governor of Florida,

W announced his own in Texas.

Let's make it official.

All right!

I'm a candidate
for governor of Texas.

He would be challenging
Ann Richards,

the popular Democrat incumbent

and longtime nemesis
of the Bush family.

And he's going to run
against the very person,

Ann Richards,
Democratic governor,

who had mocked his dad...
So viciously, in his view...

at the Democratic convention.

Poor George.

He was born
with a silver foot in his mouth.

A lot of people,
myself included,

thought that she'd be very hard
to beat.

But...

He said, "I'm going to run,
and I'm going to beat her."

I think that he wanted
to even that score.

Ann Richards was
a stage persona.

I mean, she was charismatic,
electric,

she was funny,
she was quick-witted.

And she could be really mean.

You know, I have a fella

who is challenging me
for governor,

and I am sure...

And I, I really and truly...

and I've said many times...
I know he means well,

and if he would start by running
for the city council or for...

Inside the family,

I think they were
a little nervous,

because they were afraid
he'd fail at it.

And he knew that,
which drove him on all the more.

On the surface,
Richards looked unbeatable,

an incumbent
with an approval rating

in the high 60s.

But Bush had an edge...

the help of a clever Republican
strategist named Karl Rove.

Rove was a longtime associate
of Poppy's,

and one of the most formidable
and ruthless strategists

in the country.

He had been captivated by W

since their first meeting
in the 1970s.

In walks this guy in his
National Guard Air flight jacket

wearing cowboy boots and Levis.

He exuded more charisma
than anybody should

and he was smart as heck.

I mean, I know the,
you know, the reputation,

the good old boy from Midland,
the village idiot.

But here's a Yale history major
and a Harvard MBA.

He was a screw-up at the time.

Karl saw something in Bush
before anybody else did.

He was smitten.

W was central
to Karl Rove's vision

of a solid red Texas...

someone who could appeal
to centrist Democrats

and Republicans alike.

For Bush,
Rove was the strategic brain

who could take him
to the political heights

he dreamed of.

I mean, Karl Rove was Pygmalion,

and he created George W. Bush.

He saw that this was

a kind of ruggedly handsome guy,
young man,

who could be groomed
for something greater.

He convinced George Bush
that he was that candidate,

and then he made him
that candidate.

I have spent
11 long, long joyous months

campaigning all over the state.

My mission was to tell Texans

that there is another
George Bush in this state.

And I have been able to do so.

The only thing
George W. Bush doesn't have

is any knowledge
of how government works.

And so what Rove did is,
recruited experts

and put Bush onto a series
of lessons

that went for months

in which he learned
about the budget,

and he learned about taxes,

and he learned
how to answer questions.

Every politician,
if they're smart,

recognizes they need help.

He kept going around saying,
"I'm a capitalist!"

You know, "Mr. Bush,

"you maybe oughta stop
saying, 'Capitalist, '

"and start saying,

'I believe in free enterprise
and I'm a businessman.'"

Ann Richards knew
that George W. Bush

could run a good race
against her,

but she underestimated him
because she thought he was dumb.

He just relished that, and,
and...

He's self-confident enough that
he didn't let that get to him.

He made fun of it,

and was able
to let it roll off his back.

Unless you can put
a dollar figure

to what you propose,

and then tell the people
how you are going to pay for it,

you are being inexperienced

at the cost of the taxpayers
of Texas.

The incumbent governor
of the State of Texas

is spending all her money on TV

trying to make me
something I'm not.

We ought to be discussing
welfare reform,

juvenile justice, education,

ways to make Texas
a better place for our children.

Bush's discipline
took the Richards campaign

by surprise.

One thing that Bush
was capable of doing

is staying on message.

He just never went
outside the lines.

He was an incredibly
disciplined candidate.

By election day,
he was polling higher

than anyone
had thought possible.

Running for governor
was important to Bush

for his own self-validation:

to win an office,
do it on his own,

and kind of prove to his parents

that he could be
as good as Jeb was.

Thank you all very much.

Their younger son Jeb
lost a close race

for the governor of Florida...

Uh, surprise, surprise,

Jeb lost and George won.

A race that was supposed to last
well into the night

was over early.

Lots of people are cheering
and getting excited.

Lots of friends of his
are in the room,

and he wants to go talk
to his parents.

So, he motions to me,

and he walks into the,
to the bathroom,

and he calls up his dad.

It's clear his father's
just in complete meltdown

about Jeb losing.

And finally, the now
governor-to-be of Texas, said,

"Well, Dad, I won."

On January 17, 1995,

George W. Bush was sworn in
as governor of Texas.

So help me God.

Bush was just the second
Republican governor

elected in Texas

in over 100 years.

He would soon
have to hold his own

against the entrenched
Democratic powers

who ran the state legislature
with an iron hand.

The governor of Texas
is constitutionally weak.

The speaker and, particularly,
the lieutenant governor

are all-powerful.

Literally, no bill
can be brought up

without the permission of the,
of the lieutenant governor.

Lieutenant governor
was Bob Bullock,

who was strong
as an acre of garlic.

He was meaner than a snake.

He was intimidating.

Senators described
his drive-by ass-chewings.

To Bullock's surprise,

Bush approached him
with an olive branch.

George W. Bush
didn't come in

acting like he knew everything.

He listened.

And, and I think Bullock
probably didn't expect that.

George W. Bush
and Karl Rove seduced him.

They courted him,
they worked him.

And he came to hold Bush
in really high regard,

and in the end, was something
of a political godfather.

With Bullock's support,

Bush sailed
through his first term,

easily fending off

a Democratic challenger
for re-election

in 1998.

It was Bob Bullock

who was the first person
to declare,

on Bush's 50th birthday,

"We're looking at the next
president of the United States."

Nobody had ever said that.

And, it was a Democrat...

it was the leading Democrat
in the state.

It was a kind of anointing.

You bet, I'm glad to... hi.

By the mid-1990s,

the one-time good old boy,
the Bush family's black sheep,

was being seriously discussed

as a Republican
presidential candidate.

I got a call one day from a,
from a reporter,

and they were asking me
about a poll

"that shows your boss
as the frontrunner to be

the G.O.P. nominee
for president."

I made a beeline for his office,
and he said, "What?"

We were both
kind of incredulous.

And then it sort of
snowballed from there.

People began to look at him

as a presidential contender,

but he thought he wasn't ready.

He told his friends that,
you know,

he felt
like a cork in the river,

that it was just,
it was carrying him along,

almost without his own volition.

I come here under no illusions.

I know expectations
are sky-high.

But I got a pretty good reminder
about life its own self

when my daughter,
one of our twins, said,

"Daddy,
I've been reading the polls.

You're not nearly as cool
as the people think you are."

We built up
a gigantic fundraising apparatus

outside of Texas.

So we went to California,
we went to New York.

We took his dad's network.

I'm running for
president of the United States.

There's no turning back.

He had Harvard Business School
classmates

that were being successful
all around the country.

And I intend to be

the next
president of the United States.

Baseball friends.

We, we had his brother's network
by then.

There was an early announcement

of the campaign contributions.

And it was stunning.

It was so many
millions of dollars

that was simply beyond anything
anybody expected.

By the summer of 2000,

Bush had built an insurmountable
lead in the Republican race.

But as he accepted
the nomination of his party,

he knew he faced
an uphill battle

to defeat
the Democratic candidate,

Vice President Al Gore.

Al Gore is running
to succeed a popular president.

Bill Clinton had been impeached,

but his approval ratings
were in the 60s.

So once again,
Bush is kind of taking on,

in effect, an underdog role.

Bush had always done best
when least was expected.

In the fall of 2000,
he took to the campaign trail

criss-crossing the country
with the energy

of a Texas twister.

He felt very comfortable
on the campaign trail.

He enjoyed it,
he enjoyed being with people.

He is a classic extrovert
in that sense...

he got energy from other people.

We need a leader to bring

Republicans and Democrats
together to reform...

One of the best

one-on-one politicians
of the modern age.

It was always a frustration

to those of us
who worked for him

that that didn't always
communicate through mass media.

While Bush shined
when face-to-face with voters,

on television, he often seemed
unready to be president.

If you're a single mother
with two children...

which is the toughest job
in America,

as far as I'm concerned...

and you're working hard
to put food on your family...

The American public
was seeing someone

who had not spent
their entire life in politics.

I mean, he went into politics
as a middle-aged person,

and he didn't have
a set of acting skills

that a lot of other politicians
had developed over time,

so you did get certain gaffes.

I want to make it clear
to people that...

You know, the idea of putting
"subliminable" messages into ads

is, is ridiculous.

We cannot let terrorists
and rogue nations

hold this nation hostile
or hold our allies hostile.

More nations have
"nucular" weapons,

and still more have
"nucular" aspirations.

That guy mispronounces
everything.

While his opponents howled
what a clown he was...

I know that human being and fish
can coexist peacefully.

He never really worried

that this was
going to cost him a single vote.

People were gonna vote for him
because he, George W. Bush,

why, he's just like we are.

If you think about it,
it is quite a trick

for this man who was born
to wealth and power,

and this sort of most exclusive
echelon of American society,

to somehow convince
a lot of voters

that he was just a regular guy.

His missteps also played
into a key strategy,

one that had served Bush well
for much of his political life...

to set expectations low
and consistently surpass them.

But Bush knew his inexperience
was a vulnerability,

particularly on foreign policy
and national security.

The prime minister of India?

Uh, the new prime minister
of India is, uh...

Uh... no.

He'd need to compensate

by weighing his ticket
with a seasoned vice president,

someone with unquestionable
bona fides.

So I'm proud to announce
that Dick Cheney,

a man of great integrity,
sound judgment, and experience,

is my choice to be

the next vice president
of the United States.

For Bush, there was only
one choice...

Dick Cheney,
a veteran of Congress

who had served as his father's
secretary of defense.

There's no question as to what
drew Bush to Dick Cheney.

There were two qualities.

First, Cheney was experienced.

Second, Cheney did not have
presidential ambitions.

So Bush would never
have to look over his shoulder.

Thank you.

After initially declining,

Cheney finally agreed,

but only after
extracting a pledge

that he would be given
unprecedented power and access.

He would be welcome
into any meeting,

that he would have a strong
voice in foreign policy,

defense policy,
economic policies.

He turned it
into a much more attractive job

before he accepted it.

While the selection of Cheney

lent gravitas to the ticket,

Bush still needed to prove

that he could go toe-to-toe
with Gore.

The public saw
the two men square off

in the first of three
nationally televised debates.

As Bush took to the stage,

expectations
were at historic lows,

exactly where
he and Rove wanted them.

The most decisive moments
in a presidential campaign

always seem to come down
to the debates.

That's really where Al Gore
really got pretty bollocksed-up.

Well, we do
come from different places.

I come from West Texas...

Al Gore is seen
rolling his eyes and sighing

at the things
that George W. Bush is saying,

and kind of looking down
at Bush,

who of course is not as
practiced or as knowledgeable

about national and international
issues as Gore is.

It looked kind of, you know,

condescending and,
and unappealing.

As election day approached,

polls showed that Gore's once
significant lead had vanished,

and Bush had vaulted ahead.

The mood in Bush's camp
was ecstatic.

Then, with just days remaining,

a long-buried secret suddenly
surfaced in the national media.

It was actually a staffer
on my team who came to me,

and he says, "Hey, Bartlett,

"you're not going
to believe this,

"but there's
this Fox affiliate up there

who claims that they
have evidence of a D.U.I."

Obviously,
there's a report out tonight

that 24 years ago,
I was apprehended

in Kennebunkport, Maine,
for a D.U.I.

That's an accurate story.

I'm not proud of that,
and I, uh...

I've oftentimes said
that years ago,

I made some mistakes,
I occasionally drank too much,

and I did on that night.

We always knew
this was going to be close.

But there was a sense
that weekend,

when you saw
the polling numbers,

that this hurt,
and that this was gonna make it

a real nail-biter.

The 11th-hour revelation
had hurt Bush,

but no one knew exactly
how much.

♪ ♪

On election night,

Bush retreated to Texas
with his family

to watch the returns.

He was at the governor's
mansion.

He's surrounded
by family and friends.

I was in my office
at the campaign.

Early returns come in,
obviously.

Indiana, Kentucky,
we're looking okay...

We're looking good.

But Florida, you know,

Jeb had been nervous
about Florida,

and we're watching Florida.

And then we get
the early call on Florida.

A big call to make.

CNN announces that we call
Florida in the Al Gore column.

This is a state both campaigns
desperately wanted to win.

Karl believed,
and persuaded all of us,

that the networks were,
were getting it wrong.

They called it for Gore
at first,

and that looked like it was it.

That looked like it was over.

Stand by, uh,

CNN, right now, is moving

our earlier declaration
of Florida

back to the
too-close-to-call column.

Projections start changing

and it goes to, "We don't know,
Florida is a toss-up."

And then one of the networks
came out and called it for Bush.

At 18 minutes past 2:00
Eastern Time,

CNN declares that
George Walker Bush has won

Florida's 25 electoral votes.

And I remember catching
Karl Rove's eye.

Even he, at that moment,
thought that the networks

had been premature.

It's one thing
to remove the call for Gore.

It's another thing
to call a state for Bush.

I don't see
where that's coming from.

But it's clear
Florida's gonna be tight, tight,

tight, tight, tight.

Certain that he'd lost
an agonizingly close race,

Al Gore called Bush
to concede the election.

Bush graciously accepts it

and says, "You ran a good race,
thanks very much."

But suddenly it's not over.

Suddenly, there are
more numbers coming in.

Call a doctor, call the police,
call a psychic.

In Florida, it's tightened up.

Only 37,000 votes now separate
George Bush and Al Gore,

49% to 49%.

And then all of a sudden,
the phone rang again.

And I remember hearing him just
sort of incredulously saying,

"You're retracting
your concession?"

It was unimaginable.

The vice president
has re-called the governor

and retracted his concession.

The last two months
of a campaign,

it feels like
you're running a marathon,

and the only thing that gets you
through those last two months

is the knowledge
that, come election day,

win or lose, at least it's over.

And they're basically saying,
"Keep running

and we'll let you know
when you can stop."

All right,
we're officially saying

that Florida is too close to
call because of a recall

of campaign and voter...

Counters are being called back
to work

to count absentee ballots.

You know, a speechwriter
has to be prepared

for any eventuality.

We were prepared for victory,
we were prepared for defeat,

but we were not prepared
for that outcome.

By dawn the next morning,

the question of who would be
the country's next leader

was no clearer.

You know, I've fully prepared

to go out
and give a speech, and, uh...

Thanking my supporters,
and, uh...

He, he withdrew his, uh...

His earlier comments,
and here we sit.

Overnight counting
had narrowed Bush's lead

to less than 1,800 votes
out of nearly six million cast...

a statistical dead heat.

The race was so close
that a machine recount

was ordered for all
of Florida's 67 counties.

I feel like a man
who worked my heart out,

put out a positive message,
and, uh, and, uh...

A person who is, uh...

Looking forward
to a quick resolution

of, of the ballots
in the state of Florida.

But it was, like,
up and down, up and down,

up and down.

And the skies over Tallahassee
are filled with jets

of personal injury
trial lawyers,

delivering tons of lawyers
to Florida.

And the battle is on.

Much of the disputes

centered on the minutiae
of imperfectly cast ballots...

holes that hadn't been
fully punched through,

lines that hadn't been
fully connected.

Millions of Americans learned
the phrase "hanging chad"...

the dangling bit of paper
that only vaguely hinted

at a voter's intentions.

Tens of thousands of ballots

that were incorrectly marked.

And if you counted them one way,
Bush would win.

And if you counted them
another way,

Gore would win.

By November 10,

Bush's lead had dwindled
to a mere 327 votes.

They've got the lead.

Their demand
is to shut down any recounts.

The minute that lead switches,

they lose
the argument they have,

which is that they're ahead
and that the other guys

are trying
to steal the election.

Hey, Al, get out
of Cheney's house!

Hey, Al...

Both sides are getting more
frustrated at each other

by the day.

♪ ♪

As the battle over the White
House dragged on,

Bush retreated to his ranch,

a 1,600-acre expanse of canyons,
ponds, and cedar forests

near Crawford, Texas.

I remember him
showing me his arms,

which were covered
with scratches

from clearing cedar on his ranch

and, I think,
taking out a lot of frustration

on the, on vegetation.

By December,

the focus of the recount
had shifted to the courts,

where a flurry of decisions left
both sides declaring victory.

Finally, on December 11,

the U.S. Supreme Court
heard the case.

♪ ♪

This is a CBS News
Special Report.

Dan Rather at CBS News
World Headquarters in New York.

Good evening.

We are on the air because the
United States Supreme Court

has reached a decision in the
case of Bush versus Gore.

36 days after the election
was held,

the Supreme Court ruled that all
recounts must stop immediately,

thereby preserving
Bush's razor-thin lead.

The election was close,
but tonight, after a count,

a recount,
and yet another manual recount,

Secretary Cheney and I
are honored and humbled

to have won
the state of Florida,

which gives us
the needed electoral votes

to win the election.

We will therefore
undertake the responsibility

of preparing to serve

as America's next president
and vice president.

On January 20, 2001,

in a chilly Washington drizzle,

George W. Bush was inaugurated

the 43rd president
of the United States.

Few presidents
had come into office

facing greater doubts
about their legitimacy.

Protesting is now very intense

as we're coming up here,
screaming, "Fraud,

Bush stole the election."

The police are now in

about three or four rows deep
along here,

trying to push back protesters.

Police are in riot gear, um,
a lot of screaming,

a lot of pushing,
a lot of yelling.

It's hard to tell exactly

how much the president can see,

but he can hear all of this...

The division was so bitter,

and neither side really won.

The decision was made
by the Supreme Court.

It's like a fight that never
really got resolved,

and I think that we've sort of
been in our corners ever since.

Racist, sexist, anti-gay!
Bush and Cheney go away!

The mood of the country,

obviously the mood
of the opposition party,

it was raw, you could feel it,

it was palpable
in Washington, DC.

There were going to be
a part of the public,

and a large part
of the opposition party, that,

there was always in their mind,

going to be an asterisk
on this presidency.

As he addressed

the largest crowd
he had ever faced,

Bush sought to calm the frayed
nerves of the country.

And sometimes, our differences
run so deep,

it seems we share a continent,
but not a country.

We do not accept this.

And we will not allow it.

We could not say,

"That's the job
the American people

elected us to do."

You couldn't say that,

because the American people had,

in their totality,
preferred the other guy.

That was something

that we were conscious of.

Today we affirm a new commitment

to live out our nation's promise

through civility,
courage, compassion,

and character.

Even as he pursued
reconciliation,

Bush was eager
to quickly assert control.

But the mechanisms
of government,

particularly foreign policy,
were still mysterious.

His father was one of the most
experienced people

in foreign affairs.

And George Bush was
untraveled and not interested.

And so he picked people to do
that part of the job for him.

As secretary of defense,
Bush named Dick Cheney's mentor,

Donald Rumsfeld,
who had held the same job

under President Gerald Ford.

Rumsfeld brought with him
to the Pentagon

a coterie of advisers
known as "neo-conservatives,"

foremost among them
his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz.

The neo-cons ardently believed
in the spread

of American power and values

through military strength.

Their view was
that the United States

had enough power
to exert its will,

at least on any major issue.

The emphasis was particularly

on military power,
as opposed to diplomacy.

There was
a mistrust of diplomacy

and international institutions.

While a neo-conservative enclave
was forming in the Pentagon,

Bush named a moderate,
Condoleezza Rice,

to be his
national security adviser.

At the State Department,

he appointed one of his father's
most trusted advisers,

General Colin Powell.

KAREN DeYOUNG:
He was a person
of great stature,

he had military experience.

He was widely respected
across the country.

He could calm a lot of people,
certainly Republican moderates,

who felt that Bush
was getting his advice

from people who were pretty
far over to the right,

of a neo-conservative bent.

General Powell
is a strong figure

and Dick Cheney
is no shrinking violet.

But neither is Don Rumsfeld.

Nor Condi Rice.

I view the four as being,

being able
to complement each other.

This arrangement...

Rumsfeld and the neo-cons
at Defense;

Powell and the moderates
at State...

Established a lasting fault line

in the administration's
foreign policy.

I don't think President Bush

intentionally went
for a team of rivals.

I think he went
for a team of strong members.

And if that meant
they were rivals, so be it.

But he came into office
not lacking in confidence

about his own position
and his own abilities

to sort out good advice.

This is in a way, a dream team,

although when people made
that argument,

they forgot that no group

of smart, articulate
foreign policy experts

agrees, usually.

And what you need is a president
who can make the decision.

There was this vacuum
for George Bush

about his foreign policy,
his defense policy.

He had no ideology
in those spaces.

And so those with strong views

obviously saw the opening
or the vacuum there,

and they filled it.

But the foreign entanglements

which were to define
Bush's presidency

were nowhere in sight
as he took office

in January 2001.

With the country
peaceful and prosperous,

Bush could focus
on the domestic agenda

on which he had campaigned.

In May, he pushed through
a $1.3 trillion tax cut

with provisions
to help all taxpayers,

but especially the wealthy.

He also moved forward
on education reform

with the help of Massachusetts
Democrat Ted Kennedy.

George Bush had been elected

on a very clear mandate.

He was going to cut taxes,

he was going to institute
certain educational reforms,

and he was going to continue
on the debt reduction path

that Bill Clinton
had put the country on.

The tax cut is passed.

The education bill
is well on the way.

The debt reduction
was going to continue

as long
as the prosperity continued.

And by August, you had
this tremendous feeling

of, "Now what?"

At the White House today,

President Bush
gathered his cabinet

to mark what he called
six months of accomplishments.

The president starts
a monthlong vacation tomorrow,

the longest of any president
since Richard Nixon.

By the summer of 2001,

his presidency seemed
to be going so well

that Bush took
an extended vacation

at his Texas ranch.

Coming out here
makes you realize

that Washington
is a wonderful place,

but it's certainly not
the center

of all wisdom and knowledge.

He fished, cut wood,

and enjoyed his time
away from Washington.

♪ ♪

Bush continued to receive
daily intelligence briefings

during his vacation,

but he did not
seem particularly concerned

by an August 6 briefing entitled

"Bin Laden Determined
to Strike in U.S."

Ever since taking office,

Bush had received
regular reports

about the activities
of the terrorist group Al Qaeda,

led by a Saudi millionaire
named Osama Bin Laden.

But this was an escalation.

The bells are ringing

in the intelligence community.

Red alerts.

They don't know specifically
what it is,

but they can see the activation

of, of a whole array of people
that they follow.

Bush doesn't want to hear it.

We heard from a number
of intelligence sources

that a major attack
was being planned by Al Qaeda.

As the summer went on,
we thought

perhaps it would occur
around July the 4th.

When July the 4th passed,

and there was no attack,

I think some people in
the Bush administration thought,

"Uh, well, we were wrong.

We were making this all up."

President Bush wasn't alone

in failing to appreciate
the threat Al Qaeda posed.

His more seasoned
national security team

also took little note

of the warnings
they received that summer.

These old dinosaurs
of U.S. foreign policy

were stuck in a time warp.

They're not
mentally flexible enough

to understand
the world has changed

since they were in office.

They were thinking
about the Cold War,

where states
were the source of threat.

They dismissed
these non-state actors,

these shadowy groups.

That was one of the flaws
in W's thinking,

that bringing old veterans in

would be useful
in a time of change.

It wasn't, it was the opposite.

- Oh, my God!
- Oh, my God!

♪ ♪

In the days after the attacks
on September 11,

a pall descended
over much of Washington.

The belief was not only strong,

it was a near-certainty

that a next wave of attacks
was going to happen.

There were credible threats
on the president

and on the White House
that took place day after day.

This city was in the grip
of wild rumors.

I remember having a thought

every time
I walked through downtown,

"Is this the day
a car bomb goes off?"

♪ ♪

Our perception wasn't just
that they had conducted

this incredible attack directly
against the United States,

it was that they could even
do something bigger

in the future,

like use nuclear weapons
or biological weapons.

That suddenly became a reality.

The terrorist threat Bush had
dismissed only weeks earlier

now consumed him.

He instructed
his national security staff

to inform him of any possible
attack, no matter how unlikely.

So we put together what
we called the "threat matrix,"

that listed
every single threat report,

where it came from,
who the source was,

what was being done about it,

what kind of credibility
we gave to it,

and we would begin the briefing
by him going through it.

"Michael,
tell me about number 21.

Michael,
tell me about number 45."

Bush struggled to conceal
his own grief and worry.

"I could see the lines cut
deeper in his face," Laura said,

"and I knew he was lying awake
next to me at night."

I am a, I am a loving guy,

and I'm also someone, however,
who's got a job to do,

and I intend to do it.

And, um, this is
a terrible moment.

He was not conveying
what he wanted to convey,

this message of strength.

Colin Powell sent him a note,

essentially saying,

"Don't show too much emotion
in public."

The president read the note
in front of everyone

that was assembled
at a cabinet meeting

and said, "Don't worry,
I'm not losing it."

Above all, Bush felt
he had let the country down,

and he was determined
never to do so again.

"I felt my responsibility
was clear," he later confessed.

"I would pour my heart and soul

into protecting the country,
whatever it took."

He told me
that his number-one job

was to protect
the American people,

and he told me
that he failed on 9/11.

And that he could not
let that happen again.

While he campaigned
as a domestic president,

he was now going to be
a wartime president.

He had to get the country ready

for what was going to be
a long struggle.

♪ ♪

Three days after the attack,

Bush rose early for a day

that would test his leadership
as few others.

A day to console the country
in its grief,

while also giving voice
to its anger.

That morning,

he attended a service
at the National Cathedral

before an extraordinary
assemblage of dignitaries,

including his parents.

Our responsibility to history
is already clear:

to answer these attacks

and rid the world of evil.

War has been waged against us

by stealth and deceit
and murder.

This nation is peaceful,

but fierce
when stirred to anger.

And I remember him telling me

he didn't want
to look at his family,

because he knew
that if they were in tears,

he would break down.

And so he was, I think,

trying to look generally
over people's heads

in order not to let the emotions
of the moment overcome him.

It is said that adversity
introduces us to ourselves.

This is true of a nation,
as well.

He was very much embracing

and understanding
the moment in history,

what it was going
to require of him.

I don't know
where he summoned it.

That was a, that was
a tough moment for anybody.

He sits back down

and his father takes his hand
and squeezes it.

I mean, he did it,
he did what he needed to do.

The pride of a father
seeing his son

in that awesome moment
of responsibility,

and then a son feeling

the support and confidence
of his, of his parents.

Later that day,

the president
traveled to New York

to visit the wreckage
of the World Trade Center

for the first time.

Five miles out,

you could actually
smell the burning,

the ashes, three days later.

That was the first thing
all of us noticed.

Police barricades are up.

People behind the barricades
are all wearing hard hats,

and the president says
"I want to stop and get out."

Although no public remarks
had been scheduled,

Bush grabbed a bullhorn

and climbed atop
the ruins of a fire truck.

As we mourn the loss
of thousands of our citizens...

George, we can't hear you!

I can hear you!

I can hear you,

the rest of the world hears you,

and the people...

And the people who
knocked these buildings down

will hear all of us soon.

This is where George W. Bush's
talent as a politician

was evident.

He wanted to send a signal
from there

that we were going to rebuild
as a country.

That, that tearing down
the Twin Towers created

a, a wound, but it wasn't
going to be a scar.

That's where he showed
a certain visceral understanding

of the American spirit.

I watched him that day
turn from a president

whose presidency
was drifting a little bit

to a man with a purpose.

I saw him become
the commander-in-chief that day.

On the trip back to Washington,
word reached Bush

that Congress had voted
overwhelmingly

to authorize the use of force

against those responsible
for 9/11.

The next day,
he convened a meeting

of his national security team

at Camp David in rural Maryland.

By now, U.S. intelligence

had confirmed that Al Qaeda had
been responsible for the attack,

and were being sheltered
and supported

by the Taliban government
in Afghanistan.

We're going to meet
and deliberate and discuss,

but there's no question
about it.

This act will not stand.

We will find those who did it.

We will smoke 'em
out of their holes.

We will get 'em running.

And we'll bring 'em to justice.

Some advisers urged Bush
to exercise diplomacy,

but the president
was having none of it.

There was breakfast before
the policy meeting started,

and I was standing
with the president,

and a State Department official
came over

and essentially
lobbied the president

that we should put pressure
on the Taliban

to give Bin Laden over
to the United States

and to kick Al Qaeda
out of their country.

And the president looked at us

and he said, " it,
we're going to war."

The president's mindset was,
"They did this,

"they have the capability
to do this,

"and I have to make sure
they don't do it again,

and the only way to do that
is militarily."

Some members
of the administration

believed that Afghanistan
was the wrong target.

Paul Wolfowitz, one of
the leading neo-conservatives

at the Pentagon,

urged Bush to focus
military action

on what he regarded
as the greater threat:

Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

They thought that the solution
to all problems in the Mideast

ran through Baghdad.

If we could just
get rid of Saddam Hussein,

you know,
it would all fall into place.

DeYOUNG:
Wolfowitz and other people,
I think,

saw this finally
as an opportunity to say,

"We're going to get Iraq."

Bush,

I think wisely,

and with the advice of
others around the table, said,

you know, "Maybe someday
we'll get to that,

"but right now,
people want to know

who did it and what are you
going to do about it?"

On my orders,

the United States military
has begun strikes

against Al Qaeda
terrorist training camps

and military installations

of the Taliban regime
in Afghanistan.

On October 7,

military operations
began in Afghanistan.

Together with
an Afghan rebel force

called the Northern Alliance,

C.I.A. paramilitary units

planned to drive the Taliban
out of the capital

and capture Osama Bin Laden.

Though confident of victory,

Bush's team understood

that Afghanistan posed
unique challenges.

Condi Rice recalls

that they, they put out
a big map of Afghanistan.

It was very rough terrain,
very rough territory.

She recalls looking at it
and saying,

"Oh, my God, isn't that
where empires go to die?"

At first, progress was slow.

As newspapers and pundits
wondered

whether the U.S. had waded
into a quagmire,

Bush pressed his aides
for answers

on why military victories
were so hard to come by.

I began to almost avoid him,

because I knew his
first question was going to be,

"How's this going?
How's this going?"

And he was
demonstrably, palpably,

visibly frustrated.

I was pretty confident
that as soon as they had

one big military victory,

that it would be,

to use an expression
from Vietnam,

something of a domino
phenomenon.

It was just getting
that first big military victory.

On November 9,

U.S. and Northern Alliance
forces

broke through in Mazar-i-Sharif,

a northern city
held by the Taliban

for several years.

Other Taliban strongholds
quickly succumbed, as well.

But the military victories
created a new problem

for which the administration
was unprepared:

what to do
with suspected terrorists

captured on the battlefield.

As they started to gather
more detainees in Afghanistan,

the question arose,

"Well, what are you going to do
with these people?"

And there was enormous, uh, urge

to get intelligence from them.

That was the goal.

Remember, there was
a tremendous expectation

that there were
other attacks pending,

real-time.

And that causes the president

to face
some pretty difficult decisions.

How do you detain people?

Where do you detain people?

How do you get information?

And what do you do
with what you learn?

For more than half a century,

the United States had abided
by the Geneva Conventions,

rules protecting
prisoners of war

from abusive treatment.

But Vice President Dick Cheney
and others

believed those rules
were too restrictive

when dealing with possible
terrorists in a post-9/11 world.

If you gave them
the status of prisoners of war,

they would be subject
to the Geneva Conventions,

and very strict limits

on how you could
interrogate them.

All you have to tell
the interrogator is

your name, rank,
and serial number.

Cheney and his allies believed
they could remove these people

from the protections of Geneva.

You were going to have to ask
very tough questions

with very tough consequences
and compulsion

in order to get answers

from Taliban
and Al Qaeda prisoners,

and that in order to do so,

you had to deny them
the legal status

of prisoners of war.

We also have to work the,

sort of the dark side,
if you will.

We're going to spend time
in the shadows

in the intelligence world.

A lot of what needs
to be done here

will have to be done quietly,
without any discussion,

using sources and methods

that are available
to our intelligence agencies

if we're going to be successful.

That's the world
these folks operate in.

There was very much
a macho quality to this.

These were people of action,
people who didn't get hung up

in endless meetings and debates
and, you know,

"We have to worry
about what Congress might think,

how the media might react."

No.

They were going to do
what needed to be done,

and consequences be damned.

To justify
"working the dark side"

without congressional approval,

Cheney relied
on a theory of executive power

that placed the president

beyond the oversight
of Congress.

As Cheney saw it,

this was a mortal threat
to the country.

You know, this was none
of Congress's business

to tell the president
of the United States

how to conduct foreign policy.

For years, Cheney
had been preoccupied

by so-called
weapons of mass destruction,

particularly biological agents
that could easily and rapidly

spread through
a defenseless population.

Cheney's worst fears

seemed realized
just three weeks after 9/11,

when another attack began
to unfold on American soil.

A Florida man has contracted

a very rare and potentially
deadly form of anthrax.

In early October,

envelopes containing a powdered
deadly form of anthrax

were received in the mail
by news anchors and politicians

around the country.

The envelopes also contained

crudely written letters
with the words:

"Death to America.
Death to Israel.

Allah is great."

The anthrax attacks...

That is one of
the most underappreciated events

of the period,

because I think
that was the thing

that really locked in
a lot of the mood of dread

that was such a feature of
those first months after 9/11.

In all, 17 people were stricken
with anthrax.

Five would die.

A massive investigation
would eventually

point to domestic origins,

but at the time,
the anthrax attacks

only strengthened
Cheney's argument

that there could be no limits
to the war on terror.

Cheney says,

"We need to think in a new way

about these
high-impact threats."

He says, "If there's
a one-percent chance

"that terrorists
have gotten their hands

"on weapons of mass destruction,

"we need to treat it
as a certainty.

"It's not about our analysis,

it's about our response."

Cheney urged Bush to suspend
the Geneva Conventions

for captured fighters
in Afghanistan,

so that an array of more extreme
interrogation techniques,

including
harsh physical punishment,

could be used against them.

But other key advisers
disagreed.

Colin Powell was uncomfortable
with this.

He was a military guy
who operated

under military rules,

in which, you know, there were
very clear prohibitions

on using tactics
like were being proposed

by his colleagues
in the Bush administration.

The decision over what to do

with suspected
Al Qaeda prisoners

would be one of the most
momentous of Bush's presidency.

As the president
weighed how to proceed,

Cheney was a persistent
and persuasive presence.

It became the narrative

that Cheney was really the,
the brains of the operation,

that he was leading Bush
wherever he wanted him to go.

And I have really come
to doubt that.

George W. Bush
is not a stupid person.

He is a very bright man.

He certainly delegated
a lot of tasks to Cheney,

but I don't for a minute believe

that wool was comprehensively
pulled over his eyes

by this sort of scheming
vice president.

On the issues
that Bush cared about,

when a decision was before him,
he was the decider, as he said.

The caricature that Cheney
would tell him what to do

is just false.

Bush would not have
put up with that.

But Cheney was very good
at setting the table

and lining up the shot

so that Bush was likely
to take it.

It was kind of remarkable
to watch him work.

Powell put it this way to me,
in a metaphor I'll never forget.

He came back from a meeting
with the president,

and he said, "Larry,

"the vice president knows

"how to get the cowboy in Bush
to pull his .45

"and start shooting,

and I don't know how to get him
to put it back in the holster."

In a series of decisions

beginning in January of 2002,

Bush suspended
Geneva's protections

for captured enemy combatants
in Afghanistan,

and approved a menu of so-called

"enhanced
interrogation tactics."

Administration lawyers
provided legal cover.

At the time,

the Department of Justice
attorneys said

that these enhanced
interrogation techniques

were not torture,

they did not violate
any anti-torture treaties,

they did not rise to that level,
that they were indeed legal.

President Bush was told that.

Already, the first wave
of captured enemy combatants

were being transferred

from the battlefields
of Afghanistan

and neighboring Pakistan

to Guantánamo Bay,
a U.S. military base in Cuba

converted
into a makeshift prison.

You're talking about cells they
prefer to call outdoor cells.

Many will call them cages.

They are simply roofed cubicles
surrounded by wire mesh fence.

Exposure to the elements.

There will be a concrete floor,
a mat,

a bucket to be used for
personal hygiene... that's it.

Very, very tight security.

C.I.A. specialists descended
on Guantánamo,

where they put into practice

the newly approved
interrogation techniques.

The tactics included everything

from slapping somebody
in the face,

pushing them up against a wall,
denying them food,

denying them liquids,

putting someone in a confined
space for a long period of time,

rectal feeding,
continuous sleep deprivation.

And then the worst of them
that we've heard about

is waterboarding,

where you simulate
drowning somebody.

Bush believed the C.I.A.'s use

of violence against captured
prisoners in Guantánamo

and at secret "black sites"
around the world,

was justified
if it saved American lives.

If you really believe
that Al Qaeda

is about ready
to attack you again,

and if you really believe
that these individuals,

who you have captured,

know what those attack plans
are,

and you couldn't get
the information any other way,

and if those attacks happened,

many, many, many
more Americans could die,

how could you not do it?

Bush's critics argued

that his approval of the
enhanced interrogation program

created a ripple effect,
a culture of cruelty

that trickled down
to all those charged

with carrying out
the war on terror.

The president said,
"Torture people."

That's the message
that went down

from the highest power
in America.

That's what it got interpreted
in the field.

I don't think anyone
at that moment realized

the effects that that decision
would have

down where the rubber
meets the road.

All presidents
who are in wartime

are having to try to balance
national security

with civil rights and liberties.

All presidents.

Every day, they lived
with the thought

that another terrorist attack
could occur,

and they were going to do
everything they could

to try to stop that.

And sometimes that meant skating
right up to the line

of civil rights and liberties,

and sometimes it meant
crossing it.

But many worried
that these tactics

would exact a heavy toll,
both morally and practically.

It's these bigger issues:

Who are we as a country?

Are we a leader in
humanitarian issues or not?

You know, do we care
about human rights or not?

All of these things
were up for grabs.

The days after 9/11,
the entire world was with us.

There were tens of thousands
of people

in the streets of Tehran
not yelling "death to America,"

but expressing their sympathy
with America.

The world was with us,
and we squandered it.

And the reputation
of the United States

was tarnished
for generations to come

in the Middle East

by the things that we did.

By mid-November 2001,

the war in Afghanistan
seemed to be nearing its end

as U.S.-led forces stormed
the capital, Kabul.

A few weeks later,
they took Kandahar,

the Taliban's last stronghold.

But the sweetness of victory
was tempered

when Osama Bin Laden
slipped away from allied forces

during a ferocious battle

in the mountainous region
of Tora Bora.

The president said,

"Michael, is there anything new
this morning?"

And I said, "Mr. President,

"I have some really bad news
for you.

Bin Laden has escaped
from Tora Bora."

And I had never seen
the president lose his temper

in my entire year
of briefing him.

I had never seen him get mad.

He did in this case.

Bin Laden's escape

and the swift collapse
of the Taliban government

left Bush and much
of the country unsatisfied.

Afghanistan's not big enough.

It's not proportional.

It needs to be bigger.

The towers are burning,
the Pentagon's burning,

they attacked
the United States...

The response
has to be proportional

to what occurred to us.

Afghanistan really didn't do it.

Afghanistan did not
send the signal to the world,

"Don't mess
with the United States."

We need a state actor.

Saddam Hussein,
let's go after him.

That'll send
the signal to the world

that you don't mess
with the United States.

Initially resistant
to the neo-cons' argument

to invade Iraq right away,

Bush felt himself
increasingly drawn to the idea.

The reasons
were not only political;

they were personal.

In 1991, Bush's father had
waged the first Gulf War

against Saddam's forces
in Kuwait.

The war was over quickly,

but to avoid
a bloody occupation,

George H.W. Bush
had halted the U.S. advance

before reaching Baghdad,

allowing Saddam to survive.

Bush developed a sense

that there was unfinished
business

from the first Persian Gulf War
in the early 1990s;

that leaving Saddam in power
had been a mistake.

Bush was attracted to the idea

of finishing something
his father had left undone.

There was also a strong sense

that Iraq was a growing threat
to U.S. interests,

and that was because the regime

of arms control restrictions
and sanctions

that was keeping Iraq bottled up
after that first Gulf War

were beginning to erode.

There was this powerful
determination

within the administration

that nothing like 9/11
would ever happen again.

I mean, they racked
their brains,

like,
"How did we not see this?"

"How can we make sure
we never ever miss

something like this again?"

In that sense, what you get is
a classic overreaction,

and you go not just
into Afghanistan,

but you go into Iraq.

For President Bush,

removing Saddam also presented
an opportunity:

to spread American values
throughout the Middle East,

and to put his personal stamp
on history.

W's opinion of the role
of America in the world

was very much formed

by his father's experience
in World War II.

So many sons of fathers
like that,

uh, they, they looked back

at how America saved
civilization,

as, as they saw it.

That image of a powerful America

sheltering the rest of the world
under its arm

was very much
in, in Bush's mind.

All of us need to understand
it is now time

to plant the flag of freedom

firmly in our nation
and around the world.

Because what we do today
will determine whether or not

our children and
our grandchildren can grow up

in a life that we knew.

He truly believed

that there were things
he was destined to do.

And one of those things
was to spread the American way

in opportune moments.

An almost evangelical sense
of rectitude and righteousness

did motivate Bush.

Throughout late 2001
and early 2002,

Bush moved closer
to a decision to invade Iraq.

He ordered the Pentagon
to revise its war plans,

and tasked Cheney
with turning up proof

of Saddam's weapons program.

Cheney threw himself
into the effort,

making frequent trips
to C.I.A. headquarters,

where he met directly
with C.I.A. analysts.

And he's saying in briefings,

"I want to hear everything,
even the rawest intelligence,"

and there's a pushback.

"You don't want to hear
the raw stuff.

Some of it's meaningless."

You know, it hasn't...
It's not vetted intelligence.

But Cheney
wants to hear everything.

So Cheney's getting
a feed of, of fear.

Cheney's hands-on approach

reflected a deep skepticism

of the C.I.A.'s ability

to interpret
its own intelligence.

He was suspicious

that the C.I.A.
as an institution

was too conservative
about threats,

was willing
to gloss things over,

or required a higher
standard of proof

than Cheney believed
was necessary

in order to respond
to a potential threat.

Cheney had seen for himself

how the C.I.A. had missed
Saddam's nuclear weapons program

during the first Gulf War.

When they accounted
for non-conventional weapons

at the end of that war,

they found a nuclear program
by Saddam Hussein and his regime

that was far more advanced

than the intel
that they had at the time.

There was this feeling

that we were underestimating
the risk in this case.

To repeat the same mistake
this time, Cheney believed,

would be catastrophic.

He and his allies weren't
going to let that happen.

Cheney had an agenda.

He knew what he wanted
the answer to be,

he knew what he wanted
the end result to be.

And they begin pressuring
the intelligence community

to find the evidence

that supports
their preconceived notions

about the threat that
Saddam posed to the world.

Under Cheney's prodding,

the C.I.A.
began to generate reports

that Iraq was harboring
weapons of mass destruction.

In terms of biological
and chemical weapons,

it was not
an outlandish position at all

to believe that
Saddam Hussein still had them.

He had had them,
he had built them,

he had used them,

he had lied many, many times

before, during, and after
U.N. weapons inspections.

The nuclear case
was always much, much weaker.

But the idea that there was
a threat of an atomic attack

by a man like Saddam Hussein

was much more likely to
capture the public imagination.

Cheney briefed Bush
on intelligence

that Iraq was attempting
to acquire uranium from Africa,

and the centrifuges necessary
to enrich it

into a nuclear bomb.

These reports, and many others,

were poorly sourced,
uncorroborated,

and doubted
by experts in the field.

But, under pressure,

the C.I.A. presented them
as proof.

They took raw intelligence,
they picked through it.

It didn't matter
what its credibility was...

Its credibility
could be assessed as poor,

it didn't matter.

As long as it fit
what they wanted to do,

they plucked it out
and put it on the board.

And then they packaged it,
once they got enough pieces,

and they sent it
to the White House.

Yes, the agency pushed a story
beyond the facts,

beyond the truth.

That was our failure,

but we were fully aware
of the consequences,

that the noose
was around our neck.

We can't afford to fail
one time, and we got it wrong.

Woefully uneducated
in foreign affairs,

inclined to believe
the worst about Saddam,

Bush did nothing
to probe the reliability

of the C.I.A.'s reporting.

Instead, he accepted as fact

what Cheney and others
had long argued:

that Iraq had a viable

chemical, biological,
and nuclear weapons program.

DeYOUNG:
Bush thought of himself
as a big-picture kinda guy.

But I think in many cases,
he didn't recognize

how he was gradually being moved
to those positions.

George Bush was surrounded
by people who had an agenda.

And they had a president
who, in every other respect,

was a very self-confident
person,

but in terms of foreign affairs,
he was uncertain.

And, and so they used that.

Bush is presented
with one idea after another

that Saddam is actually seeking

these weapons
of mass destruction.

Had that been true,
it would have been justified,

but it wasn't true...
It was cooked up.

I hold his cabinet
and his advisers responsible.

But ultimately,
the president is the one

who has to take the blame.

By the summer of 2002,

Bush and his team
had transitioned

from contemplating invasion

to selling the idea
to the American people.

You needed
to bring the country along,

because you were going to send
some Americans to their deaths.

And so there was
this torturous effort

to give the impression
that Saddam was on the verge

of having
a full-fledged WMD program,

which meant he could use
nuclear weapons against us.

And that's where
they misled the American people.

Senior members
of the administration

fanned out across the airwaves
to make the case for war,

sometimes repeating
unfounded or incorrect

intelligence claims.

There will always be
some uncertainty

about how quickly
he can acquire a nuclear weapon.

But we don't want
the smoking gun

to be a mushroom cloud.

He now is trying through
his illicit procurement network

to acquire the equipment
he needs

to be able to enrich uranium
to make a bomb.

Aluminum tubes.

Specifically aluminum tubes.

There is a story in "The New
York Times" this morning...

this morning that
he is still trying to acquire,

for example, some of
the specialized aluminum tubing

one needs to develop centrifuges

that would give you
an enrichment capability.

Though he would participate

in the administration's
public relations offensive,

Colin Powell was uncomfortable
with the unilateral rush to war.

On August 5,
he'd sat down with Bush

in the White House Treaty Room,

warning the president

that he could not simply
win a quick military victory

and walk away.

"If you break it,"
he said, "you own it."

Instead, Powell advised,

Bush should build
an international coalition

before heading into war.

DeYOUNG:
Certainly, Colin Powell was
saying, "Slow down."

He was not arguing with the,
with the intelligence.

What Powell was saying is,

"If you're going to do this,
don't do it without allies.

"Don't just rush in.

"You have to convince
the rest of the world

"that this has to be the next
step in the war on terror.

It's not the kind of thing
you go out and do by yourself."

But Powell's advice
was drowned out

by a chorus of hawks
and hardliners

who were certain

that Saddam's army
could be easily vanquished,

and the country
quickly turned over

to an elected Iraqi government.

My belief is, we will in fact
be greeted as liberators.

The read we get
on the people of Iraq

is, there's no question

but what, they want to get rid
of Saddam Hussein,

and they will welcome
as liberators the United States

when we come to do that.

So many people
around George Bush

were telling him,
"This is a cakewalk.

"We're going to go in,

"the people are going
to be happy we liberated them,

"democracy will flourish,

we'll be thanked."

So, I do think
that President Bush thought

he would be seen as a hero
and be out of there quickly.

Though Colin Powell

was isolated
inside the administration,

he did have some
powerful friends on the outside.

Ten days
after his meeting with Bush,

an op-ed appeared
in "The Wall Street Journal"

written by Brent Scowcroft,

former national security adviser

under George H.W. Bush

and a close family friend.

The editorial
was immediately interpreted

as a message from Bush's father:
"Don't attack Iraq."

There was a lot of discussion
when Bush became president

that his father would be
this sort of shadow figure,

and he never was.

According
to Bush's own recollections,

he really didn't ask his father
for that much advice.

Few people in the world
could have been

more beneficial than his father.

It must have caused some agony
on his father's part

when he saw his son
taking advice

that was leading him
in the wrong direction.

Bush had always been caught

between wanting
to please his father

and wanting to prove
his independence.

Now, he ignored
his father's advice,

and plowed ahead towards war.

If we know Saddam Hussein

has dangerous weapons today...

And we do...

does it make any sense
for the world to wait

to confront him
as he grows even stronger,

and develops
even more dangerous weapons?

He was showing
that he was his own man,

and any obstacle
was a test of resolve,

and to walk around it,
or to back off and reconsider,

would be a sign of weakness.

In October, Bush sought
congressional authorization

for military action
against Iraq.

Bush pushed a war resolution
on Congress

just before the mid-terms
in 2002,

in order to corner Democrats
and force them to say

either, you know, "I'm not
prepared to defend the country

"from chemical, biological,
and nuclear weapons from Iraq,

and I will lose,"

or "I am,"
and Bush will get his vote.

Rather than trying to really
create bipartisan support,

it was more like blackmail.

Congress overwhelmingly
voted in favor

of authorizing military action
against Iraq.

A month later, Republicans,

who had campaigned
on the need to invade Iraq,

swept to a convincing victory

in the mid-term
congressional elections.

Is the path now cleared for
a possible U.S. war with Iraq?

Today, many believe
that possibility for war

is significantly greater

than it was at this time
only yesterday.

The reason?

An American president
with new political momentum.

Clearly, Bush now had
the country behind him.

But the rest of the world
remained skeptical

that all options short of war
had been exhausted.

In November, the United Nations

passed Resolution 1441,

giving Saddam more time

by allowing weapons inspectors
back into the country.

A few months later,

Tony Blair,
the British prime minister,

begged the president to return
to the U.N. Security Council

to seek a resolution

explicitly authorizing
the invasion.

Powell strongly agreed
with Blair.

There were those
in the administration

who did not believe
in international institutions

to begin with,

so there was skepticism

about, about whether
it was even worth trying it,

but Powell made the case,
"You have to go to the U.N.

to be seen
to have at least tried."

And if they succeeded,

then the world
would come back and say,

"Oh, you were right."

Reluctantly,

Bush accepted
Blair and Powell's advice,

and ordered Powell himself
to make the case to the U.N.

Here was not Dick Cheney,

here was not President Bush.

Here was probably
the most respected member

of the foreign policy
establishment.

The speech before
the Security Council

would be one
of the most scrutinized

in the history of the body.

Powell wanted it to be airtight,
all but discarding

an early draft provided
by the vice president's office.

We argued over lots of things
in it.

We took out a lot,

almost everything
that we'd been given.

We went through it
from the ground up,

and painstakingly
put together a script

that Colin Powell
felt, felt comfortable with.

On February 5, President Bush
watched from the White House

as Colin Powell
made one final appeal

for international support.

Despite his extensive vetting,

Powell repeated several claims
that were exaggerated or untrue.

We know that Iraq has

at least seven of these mobile
biological agent factories.

Saddam Hussein is determined to
get his hands on a nuclear bomb.

He is so determined

that he has made repeated
covert attempts

to acquire high-specification
aluminum tubes.

In the end, Powell failed

to persuade the holdouts
on the Security Council:

China, Russia, and France.

A week later,
large-scale protests broke out

in cities around the world,

calling for the United States
to stand down.

But for Bush,

the die had been cast.

He had been influenced by
Cheney and others to believe

that Iraq was the primary threat
facing the country.

He was wrong,

but it's what he believed.

Most of the case
for the Iraq War

rested on the assumption
that Saddam Hussein

had weapons of mass destruction.

If we had known otherwise,

it would've been insane
to go to war.

You don't go to war
based on a lie.

I said to him, you know,

"You must be nervous
about what follows."

And he said, "Actually,
I'm very comfortable.

"You know,
I'm, I'm not a regretter.

"You know,
I've made that decision.

"You know, we'll let
the chips fall where they may,

and on to the next thing."

My fellow citizens.

At this hour,
American and coalition forces

are in the early stages
of military operations

to disarm Iraq,
to free its people,

and to defend the world
from grave danger.

On my orders,
coalition forces have begun

striking selected targets
of military importance

to undermine Saddam Hussein's
ability to wage war.

May God bless our country,
and all who defend her.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

"American Experience:
George W. Bush"

is available on DVD.

To order, visit ShopPBS
or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.

"American Experience"
is also available

with PBS Passport
and on Amazon Prime Video.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪