He was a fine athlete — a first baseman and caption of the baseball team. Dad excelled in the classroom, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in just two and a half years.
When the paper came back, it had a huge zero on the front. I was stunned and humiliated. I had always made good grades in Texas; this marked my first academic failure. I called my parents and told them I was miserable. They encouraged me to stay. I decided to tough it out. I wasn’t a quitter.
Shortly after the election, I introduced myself to the Yale chaplain. He knew Dad from their time together at Yale, and I thought he might offer a word of comfort. Instead, he told me that my father had been “beaten by a better man.”
His words were a harsh blow for an 18-year-old kid. His self-righteous attitude was a foretaste of the vitriol that would emanate from many college professors during my presidency.
He had a saying about well-educated folks he knew: “Book smart, sidewalk stupid.” I was determined not to let that phrase apply to me.
Soon, there was another lesson. Defeat, while painful, is not always the end. It turned out to be a valuable lesson in crisis management when Dad guided the party through the Watergate scandal.
I admired Dad’s accomplishments. Since my teenage years, I had followed his path closely — Andover and Yale, then service as a military pilot. As I got older, I had an important realization: Nobody was asking me to match Dad’s record, and I didn’t need to try. We were in completely different situations. By age thirty, he had fought in a war, married, fathered three children, and lost one of them to cancer. When I left the Guard in my late twenties, I had no serious responsibilities. I was spontaneous and curious, searching for adventure. My goal was to establish my own identity and make my own way.
The cabdriver pulled up to the Harvard campus and welcomed me to “the West Point of capitalism.”
I came away with a better understanding of management, particularly the importance of setting clear goals for an organization, delegating tasks, and holding people to account.
While I couldn’t pinpoint it at the time, I believe there is a reason Laura and I never met all those years before. God brought her into my life at just the right time, when I was ready to settle down and was open to having a partner at my side. Thankfully, I had the good sense to recognize it. It was the best decision of my life.
But for the most part, religion was more of a tradition than a spiritual experience. I was listening but not hearing.
Billy explained that we are all sinners, and that we cannot earn God’s love through good deeds. He made clear that the path to salvation is through the grace of God. And the way to find that grace is to embrace Christ as the risen Lord — the son of a god so powerful and loving that He gave His only son to conquer death and defeat sin.
These were profound concepts, and I did not fully grasp them that day. But Billy had planted a seed. His thoughtful explanation had made the soil less firm and the brambles less thick.
At first I was troubled by my doubts. The notion of a living God was a big leap, especially for someone with a logical mind like mine. Surrendering yourself to an Almighty is a challenge to the ego. But I came to realize that struggles and doubts are natural parts of faith. If you haven’t doubted, you probably haven’t thought very hard about what you believe.
Ultimately, faith is a walk — a journey toward greater understanding. It is not possible to prove God’s existence, but that cannot be the standard for belief. After all, it is equally impossible to prove He doesn’t exist. In the end, whether you believe or don’t believe, your position is based on faith.
Laura saw a pattern developing, too. What seemed hilarious or clever to my friends and me was repetitive and childish to her. She wasn’t afraid to tell me what she thought, but she couldn’t quit for me. I had to do that on my own. At age forty, I finally found the strength to do it — a strength that came from love I had felt from my earliest days, and from faith that I didn’t fully discover for many years.
After months of soul-searching and countless hours weighing the pros and cons, I was headed to Iowa, site of the first caucus in the 2000 presidential election. I was free from the anxiety of making the decision and eager to begin the journey.
I had learned that being the child of a politician is tougher than being a politician yourself. I understood the pain and frustration that comes with hearing your dad called nasty names. I knew how it felt to worry every time you turned on the TV. And I knew what it was like to live with the thought that any innocent slip could embarrass the president of the US. I had gone through all this in my forties. If I became president, my girls would be in college when I took office. I could only imagine how much more difficult it would be for them.
I had thought through some big questions. Was I willing to forgo my anonymity forever? Was it right to subject my family to the scrutiny of a national campaign? Could I handle the embarrassment of defeat with the whole country watching? Was I really up to the job?
The decision process was all-consuming. I thought about it, talked about it, analyzed it, and prayed about it. I had a philosophy I wanted to advance, and I was convinced I could build a team worthy of the presidency. I had the financial security to provide for my family, win or lose. Ultimately, the decisive factors were less tangible. I felt a drive to do more with my life, to push my potential and test my skills at the highest level. I had been inspired by the example of service my father and grandfather had set. I had watched Dad climb to the biggest arena and succeed. I wanted to find out if I had what it took to join him.
Even if I lost, I would still have a wonderful life. My family loved me. I would be governor of a great state. And I would never have to wonder what might have been. “When my time is up,” I would tell friends, “my dance card is going to be full.”
When I went to see the old governor, he asked me point-blank if I was running for Mr. Mahon’s seat. I said i was seriously considering the race. He looked me in the eye and said, “Son, you can’t win.” There was no encouragement, no nothing. He told me that the district was drawn perfectly to elect Kent Hance. I mumbled something like “I hope you are wrong if I decide to run,” and thanked him for his time.
I remember wondering why Dad had introduced me to the governor. Looking back on it, it may have been his way of telling me, without smothering my ambition, that I should be prepared to lose.
The race against Reese toughened me as a candidate. I learned I could take a hard punch, keep fighting, and win.
For someone who didn’t particularly care for politics, Laura was a natural campaigner. Her genuineness made it easy for voters to relate to her.
I hated losing, but I was glad I’d run. I enjoyed the hard work of politics, meeting people and making my case. I learned that allowing your opponent to define you is one of the biggest mistakes you can make in a campaign. And I discovered that I could accept defeat and move on. That was not easy for someone as competitive as I am. But it was an important part of my maturing.
I learned a valuable lesson about Washington: Proximity to power is empowerment. Having Dad’s ear made me effective.
Clinton was 22 years younger than Dad — and six weeks younger than me. The campaign marked the beginning of a generational shift in American politics. Up to that point, every president since FDR had served during WW2, either in the military or as commander in chief. By 1992, Baby Boomers and those younger made up a huge portion of the electorate. They were naturally drawn to support someone of their own generation.
The politically astute response would have been some banality like “He feels this hill can be climbed.” Instead, I unleashed. I told the reporters I thought their stories were biased. My tone was harsh, and I was rude. It was not my only angry blurt of the campaign. I had developed a reputation in the press corp as a hothead, and I deserved it.
My experience on Dad’s campaign and running the Rangers had sharpened my political, management, and communication skills. Marriage and family had broadened my perspective. And Dad was now out of politics. My initial disappointment at his loss gave way to a sense of liberation. I could lay out my policies without having to defend his. I wouldn’t have to worry that my decisions would disrupt his presidency. I was free to run on my own.
As the son of the candidate, I would get emotional and defend George Bush at all costs. As the candidate myself, I understood that I had to be measured and disciplined. Voters don’t want a leader who flails in anger and coarsens the tone of the debate. The best rebuttal to the barbs was to win the election.
In her toughest growl, she said, “This is going to be rough on you, boy.”
It was the classic head game. But its effect was opposite to what she intended. If the governor was trying to scare me, I figured she must feel insecure. I gave her a big smile, and the debate went fine. I had seen enough politics to know you can’t really win a debate. You can only lose by saying something stupid or looking tired or nervous. In this case, I was neither tired nor nervous. I made my case confidently and avoided any major gaffes.
He took me into his study. The place looked like a research library. He had stacks of documents, reports, and data.
Running for president was a decision that evolved over time. Many urged me to run — some for the sake of the country, others because they hoped to ride the race to glory. I often heard the same comment: “You can win this race. You can be president.” I was flattered by the confidence. But my decision would not turn on whether others thought I could win. After all, everyone told me I could never beat Ann Richards. The key question was whether I felt the call to run.
As I pondered the decision, there was a dilemma. Because of the size and complexity of a presidential campaign, you have to start planning early, even if you are not sure whether you want to run.
I tried hard to focus on the inauguration, but I couldn’t. As we walked into the church, I told Mother I had been struggling with the decision of whether or not to run for president.
“George,” she said, “get over it. Make up your mind, and move on.”
Moses’ first response was disbelief: “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He had every excuse in the book. He hadn’t led a perfect life; he wasn’t sure if people would follow him; he couldn’t even speak that clearly. That sounded a little familiar.
Laura and I had been discussing the presidential race for 18 months. She was my sounding board as I talked through the pros and cons. She didn’t try to argue me out of the race, nor did she attempt to steer me in. She listened patiently and offered her opinions. I think she always sensed that I would run. As she put it, politics was the family business. Her goal was to make sure I made the decision for the right reasons, not because others were pushing me to run.
If she had objected, she would have told me so, and I would have not run. While she worried about the pressure I would feel as president, she shared my hopes for the country and had confidence I could lead. One night she just smiled at me and said, “I’m in.”
As a small business owner, baseball executive, governor, and front-row observer of Dad’s White House, I learned the importance of properly structuring and staffing an organization. The people you choose to surround you determine the quality of advice you receive and the way your goals are implemented. Over 8 years as president, my personnel decisions raised some of the most complex and sensitive questions that reached the Oval Office: how to assemble a cohesive team, when to reshuffle an organization, how to manage disputes, how to distinguish among qualified candidates, and how to deliver bad news to good people.
Dick’s experience was more extensive and diverse than that of anyone else on my list. As White House chief of staff, he helped President Ford guide the nation through the aftermath of Watergate. He had served more than a decade in Congress and never lost an election. He had been a strong SecDef. He had run a global business and understood the private sector. Unlike any of the senators or governors on my list, he had stood next to presidents during the most gut-wrenching decisions that reach the Oval Office, including sending Americans to war. Not only would Dick be a valuable adviser, he would fully capable of assuming the presidency.
The vice presidential selection came at the end of a grueling primary season. The campaign process has a way of stripping the candidates to the core. It exposes strengths and weaknesses to the voters. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the grind of the campaign helps a candidate to prepare for the pressures of the presidency. Those intense days also revealed the character of the people around me and laid the groundwork for the personnel decisions I later faced in the White House.
Early in the afternoon, Karl came by with the first exit polls: I was going to lose, and lose badly.
Laura spoke up, “George, do you want to be president?” she asked. I nodded. “Then you’d better not let yourself get defined again.”
She was right. I had made the classic front-runner mistake. I had let Senator John McCain, the other top contender for the nomination, take the initiative. McCain, a member of Congress since 1983, had managed to define himself as an outsider and me as an insider. He talked about reform at every campaign stop.
Looking back on it, the loss in New Hampshire created an opportunity. Voters like to gauge how a candidate responds to adversity. Reagan and Dad showed their resilience after losing Iowa in 1980 and 1988, respectively. Bill Clinton turned his campaign around after defeat in New Hampshire in 1992, as did Obama in 2008. In 2000, I looked at the defeat as a chance to prove I could take a blow and come back. The lesson is that sometimes the best personnel moves are the ones you don’t make.
Al Gore was a talented man and an accomplish politician. Like me, he had graduated from an Ivy League school and had a father in politics. But our personalities seemed pretty different. He appeared stiff, serious, and aloof. It looked like he had been running for president his entire life. He brought together a formidable coalition of big-government liberals, cultural elites, and labor unions. He was plenty capable of engaging in class-warfare populism. He was also VP using an economic boom. He would be tough to beat.
My first response was relief. The uncertainty had inflicted a heavy toll on the country. After all the ups and downs, I didn’t have the emotional capacity to rejoice. I had hoped to share my victory with twenty thousand people at the state capitol on election night. Instead, I probably became the first person to learn he had won the presidency while lying in bed with his wife watching TV.
I didn’t mind some creative tension in the organization. Differences of opinion among advisers helped clarify tough decisions. The key was that disagreements had to be aired respectfully, and my decisions had to be accepted as final.
With the environment in Washington turning sour, Andy Card reminded me often that there were only a handful of positions in which a personnel move would be viewed as significant. His job was one of them. In early 2006, Andy often brought up the possibility of his departure. “You can do it easily and it could change the debate,” he said. “You owe it to yourself to consider it.”
One of the biggest surprises of my presidency was the flood of pardon requests at the end. I could not believe the number of people who pulled me aside to suggest that a friend or former colleague deserved a pardon. At first I was frustrated. Then I was disgusted. I came to see massive injustice in the system. If you had connections to the president, you could insert your case into the last-minute frenzy. Otherwise, you had to wait for the DoJ to conduct a review and make a recommendation. In my final weeks in office, I resolved that I would not pardon anyone who went outside the formal channels.
I spent our last weekend at Camp David wrestling with the decision. “Just make up your mind,” Laura told me. “You’re ruining this for everyone.” Ultimately, I reached the same conclusion I had in 2007: The jury verdict should be respected. In one of our final meetings, I informed Dick that I would not issue a pardon. He stared at me with an intense look. “I can’t believe you’re going to leave a soldier on the battlefield,” he said. The comment stung. In eight years, I had never seen Dick like this, or even close to this. I worried that the friendship we had built was about to be severely strained, at best.
So did its lesson: For all its efficiency, Huxley’s utopian world seemed sterile, joyless, and empty of meaning. The quest to perfect humanity ended in the loss of humanity.
Sitting behind the historic desk was a reminder — that first day and every day — that the institution of the presidency is more important than the person who holds it.
If they cannot answer concisely and in plain English, it raises a red flag that they may not fully grasp the subject.
The stem cell debate was an introduction to a phenomenon I witnessed throughout my presidency: highly personal criticism. Partisan opponents and commentators questioned my legitimacy, my intelligence, and my sincerity. They mocked my appearance, my accent, and my religious beliefs. I was labeled a Nazi, a war criminal, and Satan himself. One lawmaker called me both a loser and a liar. He became majority leader of the US Senate.
In some ways, I wasn’t surprised. I had endured plenty of rough politics in Texas. I had seen Dad and Bill Clinton derided by their opponents and the media. Abraham Lincoln was compared to a baboon. Even George Washington became so unpopular that political cartoons showed the hero of the American Revolution being marched to a guillotine.
Yet the death spiral of decency during my time in office, exacerbated by the advent of 24-hour cable news and hyper-partisan political blogs, was deeply disappointing. The toxic atmosphere in American politics discourages good people from running for office.
Over time, the petty insults and name-calling hardened into conventional wisdom. Some have said I should have pushed back harder against the caricatures. But I felt it would debase the presidency to stoop to the critics’ level. I had run on a promise to change the tone in Washington. I took that vow seriously and tried to do my part, but I rarely succeeded.
The shrill debate never affected my decisions. I read a lot of history, and I was struck by how many presidents had endured harsh criticism. The measure of their character, and often their success, was how they responded. Those who based their decisions on principle, not some snapshot of public opinion, were often vindicated over time.
George Washington once wrote that leading by conviction gave him “a consolation within that no earthly efforts can deprive me of.” He continued: “The arrows of malevolence, however barbed and well pointed, never can reach the most vulnerable part of me.”
I read those words in Presidential Courage, written by historian Michael Beschloss in 2007. As I told Laura, if they’re still assessing George Washington’s legacy more than two centuries after he left office, this George W. doesn’t have to worry about today’s headlines.
I saw reporters at the back of the room, learning the news on their cell phones and pagers. Instinct kicked in. I knew my reaction would be recorded an beamed throughout the world. The nation would be in shock; the president could not be. If I stormed out hastily, it would scare the children and send ripples of panic throughout the country.
The reading lesson continued, but my mind raced far from the classroom. Who could have done this? How bad was the damage? What did the government need to do?
While my emotions might have been similar to those of most Americans, my duties were not. There would be time later to mourn. There would be an opportunity to seek justice. But first I had to manage the crisis. We had suffered the most devastating surprise attack since Pearl Harbor. In a single morning, the purpose of my presidency had grown clear: to protect our people and defend our freedom that had come under attack.
The first step of any successful crisis response is to project calm. That was what I had tried to do in Florida. Next, we need to sort our the facts, take action to secure the nation, and help the affected areas recover. Over time, we had to devise a strategy to bring the terrorists to justice so they would not strike again.
I had been trying to reach Laura all morning. I placed several calls, but the like kept dropping. I couldn’t believe that the president of the US couldn’t reach his wife in the Capitol Building. “What the hell is going on?” I snapped at Andy Card.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow and of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.
Against the wall was an old couch with a fold-out bed inside. It looked like Harry Truman himself had put it there. I could envision a restless night battling the cramped mattress and the steel supporting rods. The next day would bring important decisions, and I needed sleep to think clearly. “There’s no way I’m sleeping there,” I told Carl.
The New York Stock Exchange was closed. New York’s Twin Towers were gone. The focus on my presidency, which I had expected to be domestic policy, was now war. The transformation showed how quickly fate can shift, and how sometimes the most demanding tasks a president faces are unexpected.
I also drew strength from my faith, and from history. I found solace in reading the Bible, which Lincoln called “the best gift God has given to man.” I admired Lincoln’s moral clarity and resolve. The clash between freedom and tyranny, he said, was “an issue which can only be tried by war, and decided by victory.” The war on terror would be the same.
After a few minutes, the mood started to turn. One soot-covered firefighter told me that his station had lost a number of men. I tried to comfort him, but that was not what he wanted. He looked me square in the eye and said, “George, find the bastards who did this and kill them.” It’s not often that people call the president by his first name. But that was fine by me. This was personal.
I had been briefed on the horrifying consequences of a bioweapons attack. One assessment concluded that a “well-executed smallpox attack by a state actor on the NYC metropolitan area” could infect 630,000 people immediately and 2 to 3 million people before the outbreak was contained.
As I made my decision on Geneva protection, I also decided to create a legal system to determine the innocence or guilt of detainees. Washington, Lincoln, McKinley and FDR had faced similar dilemmas of how to bring captured enemy combatants to justice during wartime. All had reached the same conclusion: a court operated by the military.
I knew that an interrogation program this sensitive and controversial would one day become public. When it did, we would open ourselves up to criticism that America had compromised our moral values. I would have preferred that we get the information another way. But the choice between security and values was real.
His understanding of Islam was that he had to resist interrogation only up to a certain point. Waterboarding was the technique that allowed him to reach that threshold, fulfill his religious duty, and then cooperate. “You must do this for all the brothers,” he said.
I started by explaining that I had an obligation to do what was necessary to protect the country. I felt the TSP was essential to that effort. He explained his concerns about the problematic aspect of the program. “I just don’t understand why you are raising this at the last minute,” I said.
He looked shocked. “Mr. President,” he said, “your staff has known about this for weeks.” Then he dropped another bomb. He wasn’t the only one planning to resign. So was FBI Director Bob Mueller. I was about to witness the largest mass resignation in modern presidential history, and we were in the middle of a war.
I was relieved to have the crisis over, but I was disturbed it had happened at all. I made clear to my advisers that I never wanted to be blindsided like that again.
I disagreed strongly with the Court’s decision, which I considered an example of judicial activism. But I accepted the role of the Supreme Court in our constitutional democracy. I did not intend to repeat the example of President Andrew Jackson, who said, “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!” Whether presidents like them or not, the Court’s decisions are the law of the land.
From the beginning, I knew the public reaction to my decision would be colored by whether there was another attack. If none happened, whatever I did would probably look like an overreaction. If we were attacked again, people would demand to know why I hadn’t done more.
That is the nature of the presidency. Perceptions are shaped by the clarity of hindsight. In the moment of decision, you don’t have that advantage.
After the nightmare of September 11, America went seven and a half years without another successful terrorist attack on our soil. If I had to summarize my most meaningful accomplishment as president in one sentence, that would be it.
Sending Americans to war is the most profound decision a president can make.
Pakistan had a troubled history with the US. After our close cooperation in the Cold War, Congress suspended aid to Pakistan — including coveted F-16s America had promised to sell them — out of concern over the government’s nuclear weapons program. In 1998, Pakistan conducted a secret nuclear test, incurring further sanctions. A year later, General Pervez Musharraf overthrew the democratically elected government in a coup. By 2001, America had cut off virtually all aid to Pakistan.
On September 13, Colin called President Musharraf and made clear he had to decide whose side he was on. He presented a list of nonnegotiable demands, including condemning the 9/11 attacks, denying al Qaeda safe haven in Pakistan, sharing intelligence, granting us overflight rights, and breaking diplomatic relations with the Taliban.
“Dealing with Iraq would show a major commitment to antiterrorism,” Don Rumsfeld said.
Colin cautioned against it. “Going after Iraq now would be viewed as a bait and switch,” he said. “We would lose the UN, the Islamic countries, and NATO. If we want to do Iraq, we should do it at a time of our choosing. But we should not do it now, because we don’t have linkage to this event.”
He asked the questions so many of us had struggled with: “Why?… How could this happen, God?”
Bob said the answer was beyond our power to know: “Life is sometimes a maze of contradictions and incongruities. Yet we could take comfort in knowing that God’s plan would prevail. Pray as if it all depends upon God, for it does. But work as if it all depends upon us, for it does.”
As the moment to deliver the speech approached, Tony said, “You don’t seem the least bit nervous, George. Don’t you need some time alone?” I hadn’t thought about it until he mentioned it. I didn’t need to be alone. I had taken time to make a careful decision, and I knew what I wanted to say. Plus, I appreciated the company of my friend.
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
If the little girls remembered anything of the meeting, I wanted it to be how much I respected their father, not a weepy commander in chief.
John did his job, now you do yours.
The young government made progress. In September 2003, President Karzai told me that pay for the average Afghan had increased from one dollar to three dollars a day — a major improvement, but also a reminder of how primitive the country remained.
Every member of NATO had sent troops to Afghanistan. So had more than a dozen other countries. But many parliaments imposed heavy restrictions — known as national caveats — on what their troops were permitted to do.
Other leaders told me bluntly that their parliaments would never go along. It was maddening. Afghanistan was supposed to be a war the world had agreed was necessary and just. And yet many countries were sending troops so heavily restricted that our generals complained they just took up space. NATO had turned into a two-tiered alliance, with some countries willing to fight and many not.
As we got closer to Kabul, I picked up an acrid smell. I realized it was coming from burning tires — sadly, an Afghan way of keeping warm. The air quality was no better on the ground. I was coughing for a week when I got home, a reminder that the country had a long way to go.
Before 9/11, Saddam was a problem America might have been able to manage. Through the lens of the post-9/11 world, my view changed. I had just witnessed the damage inflicted by 19 fanatics armed with box cutters. I could only imagine the destruction possible if an enemy dictator passed his WMD to terrorists. With threats flowing into the Oval Office daily, that seemed like a frightening real possibility.
From a legal standpoint, a resolution was unnecessary. Three years earlier, President Clinton and our NATO allies had removed the dictator Milosevic from power in Serbia without an explicit UN resolution. Dick and Don argued we didn’t need one for Iraq, either. After all, we already had sixteen. They believed that going to the UN would trigger a long bureaucratic process that would leave Saddam even more dangerous.
The question was whether the resolution would have the votes. We needed nine of the fifteen Security Council members, without a veto from France, Russia, or China. We had been burning up the phone lines, trying to get everyone on board.
For the most part, I didn’t seek Dad’s advice on major issues. He and I both understood that I had access to more and better information than he did. Most of our conversations were for me to reassure him that I was doing fine and for him to express his confidence and love.
You know how tough war is, son, and you’ve got to try everything you can to avoid war. But if the man won’t comply, you don’t have any other choice.
I could see what was happening: Saddam was trying to shift the burden of proof from himself to us. I reminded our partners that the UN resolution clearly stated that it was Saddam’s responsibility to comply.
The second resolution, which we introduced on Feb 24 was important for another reason. Tony was facing intense internal pressure on the issue of Iraq, and it was important for him to show that he had exhausted every possible alternative to military force. Factions of the Labour Party had revolted against him. By early March, it wasn’t clear if his government could survive.
With diplomacy faltering, our military planning sessions had increasingly focused on what would happen after the removal of Saddam. In later years, some critics would charge that we failed to prepare for the postwar period. That sure isn’t how I remember it.
At one of our weekly lunches that winter, Dick asked me directly, “Are you going to take care of this guy, nor not?” That was his way of saying he thought we had given diplomacy enough time. I appreciated Dick’s blunt advice. I told him I wasn’t ready to move yet. “Okay, Mr. President, it’s your call.” Then he deployed one of his favorite lines. “That’s why they pay you the big bucks,” he said with a gentle smile.
Others suggested that the threat wasn’t as serious as we thought. That was easy for them to say. They weren’t responsible for protecting the country. I remembered the shattering pain of 9/11, a surprise attack for which we had received no warning. This time we had a warning like a blaring siren.
“Mission Accomplished” became a shorthand criticism for all that subsequently went wrong in Iraq. My speech made clear that our work was far from done. But all the explaining in the world could not reverse the perception. Our stagecraft had gone awry. It was a big mistake.
They knew they could never win a direct fight against our troops, so they deployed roadside bombs and attacked nonmilitary targets such as the Jordanian embassy and the UN complex in Baghdad. Another tactic was to kidnap reconstruction workers and execute them in grisly Internet videos. Their strategy was to present an image of Iraq as hopeless and unwinnable, swinging American public opinion against the war and forcing us to withdraw as we had in Vietnam.
Anytime I spoke on Iraq, there were multiple audiences listening, each of which had a different perspective. I thought about four in particular: the American people, our troops, the Iraqi people and the enemy.
The first is that we did not respond more quickly or aggressively when the security situation started to deteriorate after Saddam’s regime fell. In the ten months following the invasion, we cut troop levels from 192,000 to 109,000. Many of the remaining troops focused on training the Iraqi army and police, not protecting the Iraqi people. We worried we would create resentment by looking by occupiers.
The nature of history is that we know the consequences only of the actions we took. But inaction would have consequences, too.
When I entered politics, I made a decision: I would confront problems, not pass them on to future generations. I admired presidents who used their time in office to enact transformative change. I had studied Theodore Roosevelt, who had taken on the financial trusts, built a powerful Navy, and launched the conservation movement. I also learned from Ronald Reagan, who combined an optimistic demeanor with the moral clarity and conviction to cut taxes, strengthen the military, and face down the Soviet Union despite withering criticism throughout his presidency.
One of the lessons I took from Roosevelt and Reagan was to lead the public, not chase the opinion polls. I decided to push for sweeping reforms, not tinker with the status quo. As I told my advisers, “I didn’t take this job to play small ball.”
A week later, the crack reappeared. So he hired another plasterer. A week later, the crack was back again. Finally the homeowner called an old painter, who took one look and said, “Son, first fix the foundation and then you can fix the crack in the wall.”
Government can hand out money, but it cannot put hope in a person’s heart or a sense of purpose in a person’s life.
The second and third debates went better. My face was calm, my suit was pressed, and I was better prepared to counter Kerry’s jabs. But as is usually the case in presidential debates, the most damaging blow was self-inflicted.
I recognize the genuine anxiety that people feel about foreign competition. But our economy, our security, and our culture would all be weakened by an attempt to wall ourselves off from the world. Americans should never fear competition. Our country has always thrived when we’ve engaged the world with confidence in our values and ourselves.
I prided myself on my ability to make crisp and effective decisions. Yet in the days after Katrina, that didn’t happen. The problem was not that I made the wrong decisions. It was that I took too long to decide.
These logistical measures were necessary, but they seemed inadequate compared to the images of desperation Americans saw on their TV. There were victims begging for water, families stranded on overpasses, and people standing on rooftops holding signs that read “Help Me!” More than one person interviewed said the same thing: “I can’t believe this is happening in the USA.”
While Katrina destroyed more than six thousand homes and businesses in Biloxi, there wasn’t an ounce of self-pity in the mayor. He resolved to rebuild the city better than before. Governor Barbour put the spirit of the state into words when he said people were “hitching up their britches and rebuilding Mississippi.”
It broke my heart that 14M children had lost parents to AIDS. It also worried me. A generation of rootless, desperate young people would be vulnerable to recruitment by extremists.
For the first time, I worried we might not succeed. If Iraq split along sectarian lines, our mission would be doomed. We could be looking at a repeat of Vietnam — a humiliating loss for the country, a shattering blow to the military, and a dramatic setback for our interests. If anything, the consequences of defeat in Iraq would be even worse than in Vietnam. We would leave al Qaeda with a safe haven in a country with vast oil reserves. We would embolden a hostile Iran in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. We would shatter the hopes of people taking risks for freedom across the Middle East. Ultimately, our enemies could use their sanctuary to attack our homeland. We had to stop that from happening.
I made a conscious decision to show resolve, not doubt, in public. I wanted the American people to understand that I believed wholeheartedly in our cause. The last thing they needed to hear was the commander in chief whining about how conflicted he felt. If I had concerns about the direction of the war, I needed to make changes in the policy, not wallow in public.
I also found solace in history. In August, I read Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power, one of fourteen Lincoln biographies I read during my presidency. They brought to life the devastation Lincoln felt as he read telegrams describing Union defeats at places like Chancellorsville, where the Union suffered seventeen thousand casualties, or Chickamauga, where sixteen thousand were wounded or killed.
The casualties were not his only struggle. Lincoln had to cycle through one commander after another until he found one who would fight. He watched his son Willie die in the White House and his wife, Marry Todd, sink into depression. Yet thanks to his faith in God and his deep belief that he was waging war for a just cause, Lincoln persisted.
I thought about Christian a lot that summer, and in the years that followed. Our country owed him our gratitude and support. I owed him something more: I couldn’t let Iraq fail.
Chief of staff Josh Bolten, who knew where I was headed, added the exclamation point. “If it gets worse,” he said near the end of the meeting, “what radical measures can the team recommend?”
I left the meeting convinced we would have to develop those measures ourselves. I authorized Steve Hadley to formalize the review the NSC Iraq team had been conducting. I wanted them to challenge every assumption behind our strategy and generate new options. I soon came to view them as my personal band of warriors.
Yet over his six months in power, Maliki had matured as a leader. He had endured death threats, potential coups, and numerous congressional delegations traveling to Iraq to berate him. A few days before our scheduled summit in Jordan, radical Shia leader Moqtada al Sadr threatened to withdraw his supporters from the government if the prime minister met with me. Maliki came anyway.
On a decision this controversial and important, it was essential to have unity. Congress and the press would probe for any rift within the administration. If they found one, they would exploit it to justify their opposition and block the plan. To reach that consensus, one more group needed to be on board, the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The reaction was swift and one-sided. “I don’t believe an expansion of 20,000 troops in Iraq will solve the problems,” one senator said. “I do not believe that sending more troops to Iraq is the answer,” said another. A third pronounced it “the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam.” And those were just the Republicans.
The left was even more outspoken. One freshman senator predicted that the surge would not “solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.” Capturing the view of most of his colleagues, a Washington Post columnist called it “a fantasy-based escalation of the war in Iraq, which could only make sense in some parallel universe where pigs fly and fish commute on bicycles.” “This is the craziest, dumbest plan I’ve ever seen or heard of in my life.”
McCain and I had a complex relationship. We had competed against each other in 2000, and we had disagreed on issues from tax cuts to Medicare reform to terrorist interrogation. Yet he had campaigned hard for me in 2004, and I knew he planned to run for president in 2008. The surge gave him a chance to create distance between us, but he didn’t take it. He had been a longtime advocate of more troops in Iraq, and he supported the new strategy wholeheartedly. “I cannot guarantee success,” he said. “But I can guarantee failure if we don’t adopt this new strategy.”
On Feb 10, 2007, David Petraeus took command in Baghdad. His task was as daunting as any American commander had faced in decades. As he told his troops on his first day, “The situation in Iraq is exceedingly challenging, the stakes are very high, the way ahead will be hard and there undoubtedly will be many tough days.” However, hard is not hopeless. These tasks are achievable; this mission is doable.”
He came across as a patient, unassuming diplomat. But beneath his calm exterior was a fearless man widely regarded as the best Foreign Service officer of his generation. Fluent in Arabic, Ryan had served all over the Middle East, including several tours in Iraq.
Condi didn’t take long to recommend a replacement for him. She said Ryan was the only man for the job.
When the PM asked what they needed, they had a long list of requests: more money, more equipment, and more infrastructure. Maliki complained that there wasn’t enough in the budget for everything they asked for. Talibani helped referee the disputes. I sat back and enjoyed the scene. Democracy was at work in Iraq.
Pete never complained. He served nobly to the end. After turning over his duties, he removed the four stars from his uniform, pinned them to a note card, and left it at the foot of the Vietnam Memorial near the name of a Marine lost four decades earlier. “To Guido Fabrinaro, These [stars] are yours, not mine!”
Chaos erupted. People screamed, and security agents scrambled. I had the same thought I’d had in the Florida classroom on 9/11. I knew my reaction would be broadcast around the world. The bigger the frenzy, the better for the attacker.
I waved off Don White, my lead Secret Service agent. I did not want footage of me being hustled out of the room.
“If you want the facts, it’s a size-ten shoe that he threw,” I said. I hoped that by trivializing the moment, I could keep the shoe thrower from accomplishing his goal of ruining the event.
Shortly after the 2004 election, I read The Case for Democracy by Natan Sharansky, a dissident who spent nine years in the Soviet gulags. In the book Sharansky describes how he and his fellow prisoners were inspired by hearing leaders like Ronald Reagan speak with moral clarity and call for their freedom.
In one memorable passage, Sharansky describes a fellow Soviet dissident who likened a tyrannical state to a soldier who constantly points a gun at a prisoner. Eventually, his arms tire and the prisoner escapes. I considered it America’s responsibility to put pressure on the arms of the world’s tyrants. Making that a goal a central part of our foreign policy was one of my most consequential decisions as president.
I was clear many leaders knew one another from previous peace efforts. But I knew there was a lot of history to overcome. Mohammad Dahlan, the Palestinian security chief, liked to remind people where he had learned to speak fluent Hebrew: in the Israeli jails.
Bilateral negotiations with a tyrant rarely turn out well for a democracy. Because they are subjected to little accountability, totalitarian regimes face no pressure to honor their word. They are free to break agreements and then make new demands. A democracy has a choice: give in or provoke a confrontation.
I told my national security team that dealing with Kim Jong-il reminded me of raising children. When Barbara and Jenna were little and wanted attention, they would throw their food on the floor. Laura and I would rush over and pick it up. The next time they wanted attention, they’d throw the food again. “The US is through picking up his food,” I said.
I later learned that China’s handling of the EP-3 crisis was based on the government’s belief that the Chinese people’ had perceived weakness in the response to America’s accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999. After the EP-3 incident, the Chinese sent us a $1M bill for the American crew’s food and lodging. We offered them $34K.
His serenade was a big change from the previous year, when I couldn’t get him on the phone. It was a sign we were developing trust.
I told him I stayed awake worrying about another terrorist attack on America. He quickly replied that his biggest concern was creating 25M new jobs a year.
I’ll never forget Putin’s reaction the first time he came into the Oval Office. It was early in the morning and the light was streaming through the south windows. As he stepped through the door, he blurted out, “My God… This is beautiful!” It was quite a response for a former KGB agent from the atheist Soviet Union.
If we’re really looking at another Great Depression, you can be damn sure I’m going to be Roosevelt, not Hoover.
It sure didn’t feel that way to me. I couldn’t help but note a strange irony of history. In 1993, Dad had left behind an economy much better than the public realized. Now I had inherited one much worse.
That was an admittedly simplistic way of describing the origins of the greatest financial panic since the Great Depression. A more sophisticated explanation dates back to the boom of the 1990s. While the US economy grew at an annual rate of 3.8 percent, developing Asian countries averaged almost twice that. Many of these economies stockpiled large cash reserves. So did energy-producing nations, which benefited from a tenfold rise in oil prices between 1993 and 2008. Ben Bernanke called this phenomenon a “global saving glut.” Others deemed it a giant pool of money.
Between 1993 and 2007, the average American home price roughly doubled. Builders constructed homes at a rapid pace. Interest rates were low. Credit was easy. Lenders wrote mortgages for almost anyone — including “subprime” borrowers, whose low credit scores made them a higher risk.
I invited Greenspan to the White House for regular lunches. Dick Cheney, Andy Card, and I would eat. Alan would not. He spent all his time answering our questions. His grasp of data was astounding. I would ask him where he saw the economy headed over the next few months. He would quote oil inventories, changes in freight miles in the railroad industry, and other interesting statistics. When his position came up for renewal in 2004, I never considered appointing anyone else.
A panic mentality set in. Investors started selling off securities and buying Treasury bills and gold. Clients pulled their accounts from investment banks. The credit markets tightened as lenders held on to their cash. The gears of the financial system, which depend on liquidity to serve as the grease, were grinding to a halt.
The markets were anxious, and so was I. I felt like the captain of a sinking ship. The Treasury, the Fed, and my White House team were working around the clock, but all we were doing was bailing water. I decided that we couldn’t keep going like this. We had to patch the boat.
I reflected on everything we were facing. Over the past few weeks we had seen the failure of America’s two largest mortgage entities, the bankruptcy of a major investment banks, the sale of another, the nationalization of the world’s largest insurance company, and now the most drastic intervention in the free market since the presidency of FDR. At the same time, Russia had invaded and occupied Georgia, Hurricane Ike had hit Texas, and America was fighting a two-front war in Iraq and Afghanistan. This was one ugly way to end the presidency.
I didn’t feel sorry for myself. I knew there would be tough days. Self-pity is a pathetic quality in a leader. It sends such demoralizing signals to the team and the country. As well, I was comforted by my conviction that the Good Lord wouldn’t give a believer a burden he couldn’t handle.
After the meeting, I walked around the Roosevelt Room and thanked everyone. I told them how grateful I was for their hard work, and how fortunate America was that they had chosen to serve. In the presidency, as in life, you have to play the hand you’re dealt. This wasn’t the hand any of us had hoped for, but we were damn sure going to play it as best we could.
No question the economic trouble was hurting John. Our party controlled the White House, so we were the natural target of the finger-pointing. Yet I thought the financial crisis gave John his best chance to mount a comeback. In the period of crisis, voters value experience and judgment over youth and charisma. By handling the challenge as a statesman-like way, John could make the case that he was the better candidate for the time.
Nobody was keen on the meeting. But how could I say no to John’s request? I could see the headlines: “Even Bush thinks McCain’s idea is a bad one.”
The economy wasn’t the only factor working against the Republican candidate. Like Dad in 1992 and Bob Dole in 1996, John McCain was on the wrong side of generational politics. At 72, he was a decade older than I was and one of the oldest presidential nominees ever. Electing him would have meant skipping back a generation. By contrast, 47-year-old Obama represented a generational step forward. He had tremendous appeal to voters under 50 and ran a smart, disciplined, high-tech campaign to get his young supporters to the polls.
Grover Norquist wrote me a public lettter. It read, “Dear President Bush: No.”
Nobody was more frustrated than I was. While the restrictive short-term loans were better than an outright bailout, it was frustrating to have the automakers’ rescue be my last major economic decision. But with the market not yet functioning, I had to safeguard American workers and families from a widespread collapse. I also had my successor in mind. I decided to treat him the way I would like to have been treated if I were in his position.
That January day in 2001, I could never have imagined what would unfold over my time in office. I knew some of the decisions I had made were not popular with many of my fellow citizens. But I felt satisfied that I had been willing to make the hard decisions, and I had always done what I believed was right.
I marveled at the peaceful transfer of power, one of the defining features of our democracy.
“It is good to be home. Laura and I may have left Texas, but Texas never left us. When I walked out of the White House this morning, I left with the same values I brought eight years ago. And when I look in the mirror at home tonight, I will have no regrets about what I see — except maybe the gray hair.”
We flew to Crawford that night and were up at dawn the next morning for the first day of what Laura had termed “the afterlife.” I was struck by the calm. There was no CIA briefing to attend and no blue sheet from the Situation Room. I felt like I had gone from a hundred miles an hour to about ten. I had to force myself to relax. I would read the news and instinctively think about how we would have to respond. Then I remembered that decision was on someone else’s desk.
Barney spotted our neighbor’s lawn, where he promptly took care of his business. There I was, the former president of the US, with a plastic bag on my hand, picking up that which I had been dodging for the past eight years.