Meet The Warrior President

[the gentleman]

How his story has changed...

... on WMD

"The Iraqi regime possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas." 7 OCTOBER 2002

"He had the capacity to have a weapon, make a weapon. We thought he had weapons." YESTERDAY

"America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." 8 OCTOBER, 2002

"He could have developed a nuclear weapon over time - I'm not saying immediately but over time." YESTERDAY

... on Osama bin Laden

"I don't know whether we're going to get him tomorrow or a month from now or a year from now. I don't really know. But we're going to get him." 14 DECEMBER, 2001

"I have no idea whether we will capture or bring him to justice." YESTERDAY

WASHINGTON -- "I'm not going to change." With those five short words, President George Bush has set out his stall for the forthcoming election that suddenly looks a lot trickier than even a month ago. And America and the world have been served notice: anyone who expects new circumstances to produce a new Bush is mistaken.

Yesterday's hour-long interview with Tim Russert on NBC'sMeet the Press programme was the most sustained media grilling Mr Bush has undergone since he took office, a rare occasion in which a ducked question did not automatically pass by unchallenged.

Mostly, he was on the defensive. Mr Russert allowed him little opportunity for the folksy rambles he uses to extricate himself from a corner. Mr Bush's most frequent expression was a tight lipped smile. As usual, he often groped for words. None too subtly, he shifted his rationale for the invasion of Iraq, conceding that weapons of mass destruction might not exist, though still holding open the possibility that WMD might be found or have been moved to another country.

But at bottom it was the familiar George Bush, stubborn, unyielding and utterly convinced of the rightness of his cause. Saddam Hussein, he insisted, had the capacity to develop weapons, if not the weapons themselves - and no responsible American president could rely on the word of a "madman" who had used WMD in the past and might now give them to terrorists.

"He had the capacity to have a weapon, make a weapon," Mr Bush said. "We thought he had weapons. The international community thought he had weapons. But he had the capacity to make a weapon and then let that weapon fall into the hands of a shadowy terrorist network. He could even have developed a nuclear weapon."

The war, he maintained, had been justified by the intelligence he had received. Nor, despite the failure thus far to find a single chemical, biological, let alone nuclear, weapon, was the job of the CIA director in jeopardy. The spy agency was "ably led" by George Tenet, Mr Bush assured.

On the economy it was the same story. Even conservatives in his own party have criticised Mr Bush for fiscal recklessness in permitting the federal deficit to soar to $521bn this year (£284bn), compared to the $281bn surplus bequeathed by Bill Clinton in 2001. But an unapologetic Mr Bush insisted the tax cuts, which have largely caused the deficits, were justified. "You've got to cut taxes to create jobs," he said, even though 2.2 million jobs have been lost during his presidency.

He blamed the deficits on the "terrible stress" brought on by recession, a tumbling stock market, and, of course, the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. In fact, Mr Bush maintained, the economy was once more in fine fettle, and was again starting to create jobs.

But just as the Iraq war was, in his words, a war "of necessity, not of choice," the same applied to the interview itself. An unaccustomed fear gnaws the White House, that this president might be going the way of his father, defeated after a single term. Mr Bush enjoys a press conference as much as a cat enjoys a cold bath. But his handlers decided it was essential to regain a political initiative suddenly seized by his political opponents, in this invigorating Democratic presidential season.

Mr Bush, it should be said, still has a huge amount going for him: a largely untapped $150m campaign war chest, a slowly improving economy, and the historical precedent that no incumbent without a primary challenger has ever been defeated. But this has been a miserable fortnight.

His State of the Union speech, normally a gift election-year platform for an incumbent, was judged a failure even by supporters. Elements in his own party have attacked his supply-side economics.

His Vice-President, Dick Cheney, with his Halliburton connections and refusal to admit even the tiniest misjudgement in Iraq, looks more of an embarrassment with every passing day. Now, it is whispered, senior Cheney aides could face indictments arising from the investigation into the "outing" of the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson - the uranium from Africa whistleblower - as a CIA agent. All of this, added to the WMD debacle, puts at risk Mr Bush's electoral trump cards, credibility and straight talking - and the polls are telling him so.

A Newsweek survey today finds that his overall approval rating has dropped to 48 per cent, below the 50 per cent mark for the first time, and at almost exactly the level of his father at the same point in his presidency. The same poll found John Kerry, the Democratic front runner, defeating Mr Bush 50-45 per cent if the election were held today. To all these difficulties, Mr Bush's reply yesterday was blunt. He portrayed himself as a man not afraid to make the toughest choices. "I'm a war president," he said early in the interview. "I make decisions in the Oval Office with war on my mind." Yes, he conceded: "I expected there to be stockpiles of weapons" - though of course none had been found. But David Kay, the US's former chief weapons inspector, "found the capacity to produce weapons ... Saddam Hussein was a dangerous man in a dangerous part of the world". America "can't stand by and hope for the best with a madman."

But what of the hyperbolic pre-war rhetoric, giving the impression that Saddam was an immediate mortal threat? Mr Bush was unrepentant: there was no such thing as "ironclad, absolutely solid intelligence", he said. The Iraqi leader had been a "direct threat" to America.

To the families of the dead and wounded American soldiers in Iraq, his message was that their sacrifice had been worth it. "Every life is precious," Mr Bush said of the 530 US servicemen killed since the invasion, and the 3,000 wounded. But "in many ways Iraq was more dangerous than we thought. We're in war against terrorists, who are going to bring harm to America. A free Iraq will change the world, and make it possible for our children to grow up in a safer world."

Later, as the interview turned to more personal matters, the warrior President denied taking liberties with the rules when he served in the National Guard during the Vietnam war. He dismissed charges by Democrats that he had gone "AWOL" in 1972 when he transferred from Texas to the Guard in Alabama. "They're wrong," he said flatly of critics who said he skipped pilot training sessions in Alabama. "This is politics. I've heard this ever since I started running for office."

On that score, Mr Bush is right. The election campaign has begun, and he will fight it as he has run the country for the last 37 months. "Divisive - who, me?" he said. "I don't know why I'm perceived as a divider, I'm working hard to unite the country ... I talk about what I believe." He told Democrats and others apropos of the election: "I'm not going to lose.I'm going to lead this world to more peace and freedom. I've shown the people I can lead and make big decisions when the times are tough."

In short, take me or leave me, I'm not going to change.