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Input: Bush delivers a speech to crew onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln to declare combat operations over in Iraq , as the carrier steamed toward San Diego , California on May 1 , 2003 . 
Bush felt a heavy burden of responsibility for protecting the nation . 
They included the chairman of Bush 's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board , Brent Scowcroft ; the former CENTCOM commander Anthony Zinni , and the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee , Ike Skelton . 
When George W. Bush entered office , "nation building" was anathema . 
He also felt that those pushing for war had no idea that the war might last ten years .52 Skelton sent Bush multiple questions about the cost and duration of the occupation , noting that he should not "take the first step without considering the last ." 
Bush 's decision-making style was based on his gut instincts .58 His snap judgment that somehow Saddam was behind September 11 , or might be behind the next attack on America , remained with him . 
-- President George W. Bush , State of the Union , January 29 , 2002 . 
Once it became clear that Bush was on a track to war , they sought to find a diplomatic exit or , failing that , to garner international support and create legitimacy for an invasion . 
The fact that Saddam "tried to kill -LSB- his -RSB- dad" weighed on Bush 's decision making . 
President George W. Bush 's decision to invade Iraq on March 20 , 2003 , was not a blunder on the scale of those of Napoleon , Hitler and Tojo . 
Powell also told Bush that the United States would "own" Iraq after an invasion and that it would dominate all other foreign - policy initiatives . 
Bush 's decision-making style was based on his gut instincts . 
Bush was reelected in November of 2004 as much because of as despite his invasion of Iraq . 
Inspections were moving too slowly for the Bush team . 
This unfinished business concerned Bush directly . 
Bush considered himself to be "the decider ." 
In this environment different factors conspired to lead Bush to a decision to pursue an optional war that most Americans believe in retrospect did much more harm than good to their interests . 
Bush felt that September 11 was the "Pearl Harbor of the 21st Century ," 59 and that his new and transcending purpose as president was to prevent another , possibly worse , one .60 . 
And yet this flawed concept drove the Bush administration to an early and uncoordinated decision for war , brushing aside the need for analysis , distorting intelligence , marginalizing senior officers who raised doubts and neglecting postconflict stabilization requirements . 
In March , when the French threatened to veto a second resolution , Bush dropped the effort and gave Saddam a forty-eight-hour ultimatum to leave Iraq . 
Bush was quick to reach decisions , and , once reached , he saw change as a sign of weakness .61 After he reached an early decision on war , he was prepared to try a UN resolution , but not change his fundamental course . 
Rice was Bush 's closest confidant . 
Bush made the case for this during a June 2002 speech at West Point , arguing that the United States could not rely on Cold War concepts such as deterrence and containment to deal with terrorists who are willing to commit suicide for their cause . 
During his UN General Assembly speech in September 2002 , Bush tied the doctrine of preemption to Iraq , noting "with every step the Iraqi regime takes towards gaining and deploying the most terrible weapons , our own options to confront that regime will narrow ." 
If there was a debate inside the Bush Administration , it was one - sided and muted ." 
on the fifth anniversary of U.S. President George W. Bush 's "Mission Accomplished" speech which declared an end to major hostilities in Iraq during a rally on Pennsylvania Avenue in Front of the White House in Washington , DC , May 1 , 2008 . 
Shortly after the September 11 attacks , Tenet presented Bush with a list of countries malevolent enough to help al Qaeda get a dirty bomb : Iraq was on the top of that list . 
That notion had a profound impact on Bush .66 Bush said : "I made my decision -LSB- for war -RSB- based upon enough intelligence to tell me that -LSB- our -RSB- country was threatened with Saddam Hussein in power ." 
Bush did not back down from his decision to proceed toward war , but he did agree to give a UN resolution a try . 
Even before the inauguration , Cheney asked outgoing Secretary of Defense William Cohen to provide Bush with a briefing focused on Iraq . 
It is not clear exactly when Bush decided to invade Iraq . 
When the George W. Bush administration entered office , its initial focus was on China and military transformation . 
31 On September 17 , Bush told his advisors : "I believe Iraq was involved ." 
The fifth was impatience on the part of the Bush team to wait for the results of the arms inspectors who were making progress in Iraq , results that could have obviated the need for war . 
A week after the attack , Wolfowitz began sending memos to Rumsfeld making the case for an attack on Iraq .34 Cheney soon began talking about Iraq as a threat to peace .35 Bush told the British prime minister , Tony Blair , in mid-September that Iraq was not the immediate problem .36 But that changed after the fall of Kabul .37 . 
That all changed on September 11 , 2001.10 Initially , Bush , Wolfowitz and others thought that Iraq might be behind the attacks .11 So did a large majority of the American people , a belief reinforced by the speculation of administration officials . 
It became clear that this was not the case , as Bush finally revealed ,12 but for many this connection stuck . 
Bush indicated that as soon as the Taliban were driven from Afghanistan , he would turn his attention to Saddam .13 . 
In March of 2002 , Bush informally told a group of senators : "We 're taking him -LSB- Saddam -RSB- out ." 
Bureaucratically they formed the leading position within the Bush administration in 2002 , with Cheney dominating the White House and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz controlling Defense . 
Cheney had daily contact with Bush and was his closest advisor on national security matters . 
The CIA had missed several indications that might have given specific warning about the September 11 attack and was not about to be caught off guard again .15 Because the Bush administration had not acted on more-general intelligence warnings of the al Qaeda threat to the U.S. homeland , it would take any future warning much more seriously . 
The intelligence that Bush and others received was based on outdated and incorrect evidence , material from untrustworthy human sources , and worst-case analysis .70 The United States had no reliable intelligence assets in Iraq .71 International WMD inspectors had been kicked out of Iraq since 1998 ; so in that sense Saddam brought this about himself . 
On November 21 , 2001 , Bush asked that the war plan for Iraq be secretly updated , which shocked the military .38 By the end of December 2001 , Central Command -LRB- CENTCOM -RRB- Commander Tommy Franks was at the Bush ranch in Crawford , Texas , briefing the President and his national security team on the war plan .39 .

The Iraq War : Bush 's Biggest Blunder . 