President George W. Bush gave an interesting interview this week with Tom Brokaw of NBC News, mostly about the Iraq war. GWB opened up quite a bit and we get a more detailed glimpse of his decision-making process. NBC has posted the transcript and video clips on the MSNBC site - it's worth checking out.
I was hesitant at first, to be frank with you, because I was worried that the first pictures coming out of Iraq would be a wounded grandchild of Saddam Hussein - but Saddam Hussein, who was not there at the time we started making the decision, would never show up - that the first images of the American attack would be death to young children.
And this is an interesting moment, because as time went on during the day, or that evening, the intelligence got richer and richer. In other words, the guy on the ground was calling in to the CENTCOM headquarters, who was immediately calling in to the White House more and more information. For example, he discovered that there was a bunker a hundred feet away from one of the houses - a bunker that had so much concrete and was likely to house Saddam when he arrived, and his kids, his boys.
And as the intelligence got richer, I got more confident with the notion that Saddam would, in fact, be there. And at 7:15 p.m. that evening, I gave the order for Tommy to proceed with an attack....
Posted by Alan at April 26, 2003 03:00 PM