The Decider: Bush Sounds Certain on Iraq Path

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10, 2007 — -- President Bush did his best tonight to convince a skeptical nation that now is the time to send more troops to Iraq.

"We can and will prevail," he said.

He is so certain. He has always been so certain. Remember "Mission Accomplished" aboard the aircraft carrier in 2003? The president said then, "In the battle of Iraq, the United States and its allies have prevailed."

And even as the casualties mounted, no weapons of mass destruction were found and Iraq spiraled into savagery and chaos -- George W. Bush would not admit to the slightest doubt.

Just last October, he told a news conference, "Absolutely, we're winning" in Iraq.

Where does it come from, this certainty -- certainty, his critics say, in the face of facts on the ground? And what kind of president -- what kind of man -- when confronted with a policy that is simply not working -- decides to pursue it with even more energy, resources and lives?

Doug Wead has known George W. Bush for 20 years, since he worked in the White House when Bush's father was vice president. He was an informal adviser to Bush, and he says the president is the most decisive person he's ever met.

"He absolutely has doubts. Yeah. Oh sure, sure... but, compared to most people I've met, he has fewer given the situation he's in than anybody I know," Wead said.

But others are filled with doubt about the president's chosen course. Author Ron Suskind, who's written extensively about the Bush presidency, said it's George Bush's nature to reject those concerns.

"I think his response is, 'They're doubting me as a person, doubting me fundamentally,' and as he faces a nation that's increasingly one of doubters it seems as though he's digging in to say, 'My confidence can and will prevail here,'" he said.

And that, say longtime friends, reflects the president's basic character.

"His core beliefs, core principles have not changed," Bush's former Commerce Secretary Don Evans said. "He's the same disciplined, thoughtful, determined leader that I have seen for many, many, many years."

Evans' friendship with Bush stretches back 30 years to their days in Midland, Texas. "I mean I see the same, you know, the same core beliefs, the same courage, the same discipline that I've always seen in him."

Evans described Bush's discipline as remarkable.

"He does not waiver," he said. "He stays very focused on it. He doesn't get distracted. And he knows the fundamental things that he is going to do in his life on a day in and day out basis, and he's not going to waiver."

But why? One thing you need to remember about George W. Bush: For much of his life, the only person who truly believed in him was him. Son and grandson and great-grandson of highly successful men, George W. Bush spent years, it seemed, struggling to come to grips with that legacy.

Doug Wead recalled a conversation with the president's brother, Marvin.

"After the election in 1988 when his father was elected president I went out to dinner with Marvin, and I said 'Marvin how about you guys? Your generation have any interest in politics?' And he said, 'Yeah, we think Jeb's gonna do something'. I said 'What about George,' you know because George was my boss, and he said, 'George, he's the family clown. He's not going to do anything.'" Wead said. "So this was the perception in 1988."

"He saw those doubts," Suskind said. "He's a guy 40ish, you know his life had more or less gone down the sink hole, not much to show, and he said, 'I'm going to be the governor of Texas.' People said, 'Are you out of your mind?' He says, 'Let me show you.' A show of will, a show of force -- he shut them down. And then the presidency: Show of will, he shuts them down. But that kind of confidence, that will, might work in a political contest in America, but in terms of the complexities of the ship of state and how it sails, of geopolitics, well, it doesn't seem to work."

To the Bush family, it was always younger brother Jeb who was the heir apparent. Wead recounted a conversation in the Oval Office with the president's mother in 1990, when George W. was thinking about running for governor of Texas.

"Barbara saw me and knew I was talking to him, I was his spy in the White House and she turned around and she said to me, 'You tell him not to run! We don't want him to run!' And this became public, this idea, that they didn't want him hurt, because they thought he would lose. And they thought Jeb had a chance," Wead said. "Barbara said, 'He's too much like me, lets face it. Jeb is more like his dad'."

The drive to overcome those low expectations, Don Evans said, is central to the president's decision making.

"He has been consistently underestimated in politics and even personally," Evans said. "I think expectations of him have always been consistently off the mark. And I think once again we are seeing in the decisions he's making right now to make the hard choice of what he feels like is the road to victory, and not the easy way out -- a lot of people thought he would take the easy way out. That's not who he is."

But by sending more troops to Iraq, the president is not just refusing to take the easy way out -- he's also rejecting the advice of several top generals, the Iraq Study Group, and many others.

Which raises the question: Does he really listen to critics, to people who challenge him?

Suskind said the president's advisers keep such critics away from the oval office.

"The inner-most circle around Bush -- [Vice President Dick] Cheney obviously, [Karl] Rove, Andy Card before he left -- started to understand after a while that in fact those doubters with their pragmatic, fact based, now-hold-on-a-minutes to the president, seemed to be undercutting his confidence; this sort of preternatural, in some cases faith-based, sort of wishful confidence he has. And the fear becomes, if they undercut it he'll be paralyzed. He'll be unable to act," Suskind said.

Bush doesn't necessarily buy into this perception, Don Evans said.

"This president, I can tell you as somebody that's known him for 31 years well, he doesn't want a bunch of 'yes people' around him," he said. "He wants people that will tell him what he needs to hear and what he needs to hear is whatever the individual's best judgment is as to the facts and best judgment is as to the course of action we should take."

And then there's the long shadow of the first President Bush. Hovering over this Iraq War is the specter of the first Gulf War -- his father's war, when Saddam Hussein was left in power.

This president personalized the global showdown with Saddam in 2002.

"There's no doubt his hatred is mainly directed at us," Bush said. "There's no doubt he can't stand us. After all, this is a guy that tried to kill my dad at one time."

Doug Wead said he thinks of the pop-psychology theory that the war in Iraq can be explained by the younger Bush's relationship with his father might not be too far off the mark.

"I think that's very close," Wead said. "When it comes to Saddam Hussein, he tried to kill his father. And he loves his father. And we've talked about this. He's conflicted, I'm sure, too. Because he's been compared to his father. Like any son, he has rivalry too -- but he loves his father, and they tried to kill him."

But Don Evans -- like many others who know the president well -- dismissed the notion of this war as a global family feud.

"No, no. I mean, they don't know this president, and anybody that's speculating-that was the last thing he had in his mind, I can assure you," Evans said. "That's not how this president makes decisions. You know, personal kind of vendettas, no, no, no, no."

Every presidency is shaped by the inner strengths, needs and conflicts of the president. Think of Lincoln's melancholy fatalism, Nixon's insecurity, Clinton's hunger for approval. They shaped the course of history.

And now, for better or worse, America's destiny is wrapped up in the sharp-edged personality of George W. Bush.