Otherwise, a largely flattering portrait of President Bush.
Regards, Ivan
Posted on 03/23/2003 5:04:07 PM PST by MadIvan
IT IS no bigger than an average living room, measuring only 18ft square - just enough room for a table and ten chairs, plus a pair of television sets constantly tuned to CNN and Fox News.
But the spartan surroundings are misleading. This unassuming room on the ground floor of the West Wing is where real power resides. The White House Situation Room is the epicentre of the war effort.
"This particular president is very comfortable meeting with his advisers in the Sit Room," says Michael Bohn, a former director of the White House Situation Room.
"Not all presidents have been - Nixon preferred to receive written reports and Bill Clinton liked to have a big gaggle of people around him which made meetings in the Oval Office more practical.
"George W Bush is more like Ronald Reagan, he likes the security of the place and is comfortable looking his advisers in the eye and asking their opinion." War is thought to have been a relief for the president. George Bush has told his closest friends that he has had difficulty sleeping in recent months.
The president has lain awake at night worrying about the threat Saddam Hussein poses to the United States. Each day he wakes up wondering: "Will this be the day Saddam strikes against us?"
When the decision to go to war was taken, the president was said to have become relaxed, confident in his judgment and sure in his ability to see the campaign through to its end.
He has no plans to alter his daily routine significantly as the war progresses. He will still rise early and go to bed by 11pm; he will still go running several times a week; he insists, as he did during the Afghan war, that the rest of the federal government continues to operate as usual, even as he and his closest advisers spend much of their time closeted in the Situation Room.
"Like Reagan, this president is very attuned to routine," Mr Bohn says. There won’t be any repeat of Bill Clinton’s legendary all-night discussions with his staff, fuelled by pizza and doughnuts.
The president is receiving twice daily briefings - morning and afternoon - from the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, as well as twice daily memoranda from the Situation Room. As much as it is the president’s war, it is also Mr Rumsfeld’s.
The defence secretary has, abandoned the doctrine of "overwhelming force" favoured by Colin Powell in the last Gulf war. In its place is a smaller, more mobile force designed to move at speed, co-ordinating its advance with precision air power. During the first Gulf war, Mr Bush’s father, president George H W Bush, took to calling in on the Situation Room as early as 5am each morning rather than wait for his daily Pentagon briefing. His son is not likely to make surprise visits to his operational nerve centre.
The four young intelligence officers on duty at any one time will be supported by experts drafted in from the National Security Agency, charged with processing the flood of information flowing in.
Although the president will receive briefings from the Pentagon, the CIA and the state department, the Situation Room is the only place his staff, led by the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, can piece together all the information the administration receives, free from the particular institutional prejudices liable to afflict other departments.
Deep down, military planners are confident victory can be won swiftly and surely, but nagging doubts continue to gnaw away at the back of analysts’ minds. Plans are being constantly fine-tuned and revised. The Pentagon’s chief concern, like that of the president, is that the Republican Guard or other troops that remain loyal to the Iraqi dictator, will launch an attack with chemical or biological weapons.
The National Security Council, which includes Ms Rice; the vice-president, Dick Cheney; Mr Rumsfeld; the CIA director, George Tenet; and General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been meeting daily in the Situation Room where video-conference facilities in an adjoining part of the complex allow the president and his advisers to communicate directly with General Tommy Franks in Qatar.
Although Central Command in Qatar, under the direction of Gen Franks, will have day-to-day control on the battlefield, the war’s duration and course is decided in Washington.
"Unforeseen and unpredictable crises will call for the president to make tough decisions that go to the heart of his character and the strength of his will," says Tom Donnelly, a defence analyst at the influential think tank, the American Enterprise Institute.
"That’s where the difference between the president and his father may be seen. George W Bush is very clear in his own mind about what he feels he needs to do."
There will be no repeat of George Bush snr’s decision to call off his dogs during the first Gulf war before they had reached Baghdad. After 11 September, Mr Bush jnr said he felt his presidency had been given this test for a purpose. "I’m not a textbook player, I’m a gut player," he said, arguing that, in contrast to his father, for him "the vision thing matters".
The 43rd president of the United States appeared, observers say, far more relaxed about the prospect of ordering US servicemen and women into action than the 41st ever was. George HW Bush recalled last week that before the last Gulf war, "The night before I could not move my neck or arms. The tension had taken hold, the responsibility for those lives."
His son, however, appeared almost eerily calm as war drew nearer. Last Monday, Mr Bush was filmed playing with his dogs, Spot and Barney, on the White House lawn. The message was clear: "The president is relaxed, the president is in control of the situation. You need not worry."
Mr Bush’s willingness to delegate responsibility to his subordinates initially led to accusations that they, rather than he, really ran the presidency. "It is always the practice to say that the advisers run the White House. That’s because it is only the advisers who talk to the media," says the pollster and political analyst Dick Morris.
That changed in the aftermath of 11 September. "President Bush is in direct, personal charge of the war on terror and knows full well what he is doing," Mr Morris says. "He lacks Bill Clinton’s genius, but most people do. But he has also a clarity that Clinton never had."
Otherwise, a largely flattering portrait of President Bush.
Regards, Ivan
"If liberals were prevented from ever again calling Republicans dumb, they would be robbed of half their arguments. To be sure, they would still have "racist," "fascist," "homophobe," "ugly," and a few other highly nuanced arguments in the quiver. But the loss of "dumb" would nearly cripple them." -- Ann Coulter, P. 121
"This is how six-year-olds argue: They call everything "stupid." The left's primary argument is the angry reaction of a helpless child deprived of the ability to mount logical counterarguments. Someday we will turn to the New York Times editorial page and find the Newspaper of Record denouncing President Bush for being a 'penis-head.'" -- Ann Coulter, P. 121
"'Stupid' means one thing: "threatening to the interests of the Democratic Party." The more Conservative the Republican, the more vicious and hysterical the attacks on his intelligence will be." -- Ann Coulter, P. 125
"Most preposterously, the New York Times reported -- as if it were news -- "With his grades and college boards, Mr. Bush might not have been admitted [to Yale] if he had applied just a few years later." "Might not have been admitted"? What on earth does that mean? Bush also "might not have been admitted" if he had dropped out of high school and become a Gangsta Rapper. It so galls Northeastern liberals that Republican George Bush went to an Ivy League school, they can't resist publicly fantasizing about an alternative universe in which Yale rejects him." -- Ann Coulter, P. 136
What genius? LOL Bill Clinton, aka, der schlickmeister, aka, Slick Willie.... has never faced the responsibilities in his life. As POTUS, he allowed UBL to carry out terrorist attacks and Saddam Hussein to lie and cheat throughout the 1990`s. Remember, The Clinton's loathed the military and under Willie's leadership defense spending dropped from 4.8% of GDP to 3.0%. The lowest since just prior to the start of WWII.
Bill Clinton remains a lying, phony scumbag.
OTOH, President Bush has showed some remarkable leadership since 9-11 and has faced the challenges of international terrorism with real courage, character and steadfast determination.
and a gobbler under his desk ;-)
He is engulfed with the peace that passes all understanding. We need to continue to pray.
LOL!
Also--as the Apostle Paul is wont to remind us, God's wisdom seems like folly to the ungodly. I think that's why so many liberals love to point the finger at Bush for being foolish, when it should be wagged right in front of their own stuck-up noses!
I was supposed to worry?
Bookmarked, BTW.
So many writers seem to leave out a word when they mean "criminal genius."
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