This is a president who likes his stories upbeat, his plotlines simple and his villains clearly marked. So it was no surprise that last week he settled comfortably–almost with a sense of relief–into the constitutional role he has come to like best: commander in chief. He improvised at the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom–authorizing a jet-scrambling “decapitation” attack on Saddam–but that was the exception to his rule. Surrounded by trusted aides, glad to be done with the United Nations (which, one aide said, was like “trying to herd cats”), Bush seemed to fall naturally into a tight-lipped determination. “It’s no mystery,” said an aide, “that this president likes clarity.”
The president loves regular order, especially now. He’s been traveling less, which means more time for breakfast and dinner with First Lady Laura. Karen Hughes, his original “mother hen” adviser, is back to vet his speeches. (“You look good in that tie,” she told him before his Oval Office speech. “It’s very powerful.”) Ever the runner, Bush now is fighting age as well as war: he’s given up sweets so he can lose weight and improve his treadmill pace. “You don’t know what six pounds can do to a running time,” he told an aide.
At work, Bush now relies on the rituals of power. As he prepared to give the “go” order last week, he convened his video-linked war council in the White House Situation Room. He asked his field commanders if they had the material they needed and faith in the strategy. After each said yes, Bush declared: “For the peace of the world and the benefit and freedom of the Iraqi people, I hereby give the order to execute Operation Iraqi Freedom. God bless the troops.”
The president has taken refuge in the political equivalent of command headquarters. A legally required meeting with congressional leaders last week–to give them formal notice that war was in the offing–was brief to the point of being brusque. (“He basically said, ‘I’m here because they told me I have to be’,” said a participant.) No fan of the media, he couldn’t hide a smirk as the White House pool was hustled into–and quickly out of–a cabinet meeting without being given the chance to ask a question.
If Bush has doubts, they’re not visible. He and Prime Minister Tony Blair bucked each other up by phone last week–agreeing that they had exhausted every peaceful alternative, pledging, in the words of one White House aide, to “put their heads together in the future.” But, unlike his father, this President Bush is not given to agonizing–or, at least, talking about it. In December 1990, on the eve of the first gulf war, Bush the Elder wrote a letter to his children. Ordering troops into combat, he wrote, “tears at my heart.” Aides said that Bush the Younger has written no such letter to his own twin daughters.
Indeed, the White House mood was proudly businesslike, clockwork in its precision. The “shock and awe” bombing was scheduled to begin precisely at 1 p.m. Eastern time last Friday. Bush–who, aides brag, doesn’t get his news from TV–was watching, in the small study near the Oval Office. He didn’t stay tuned for long, aides said. But he had to have liked what he saw. He has the shooting script he wanted.
