But there was a problem with Cheney’s dismissal of further U.N. inspections. The president, NEWSWEEK has learned, hadn’t told him to say it. Or so backpedaling officials claimed afterward, worried that Bush looked duplicitous–insisting he hadn’t decided what to do when, in fact, he was ready to shout, “Let’s roll!” “The president said, ‘I want you to include the following’,” Card told NEWSWEEK. “We knew the gist, but not every word.” Asked if Bush had ordered the inspections language, Card said no. Indeed, Cheney didn’t repeat it in a speech three days later, and aides claimed he hadn’t meant to slam the U.N. door.
A year after 9-11, what kind of world leader has Bush become? As the story of Cheney’s address shows, same as he ever was, only more so: clear on principles, evasive on tactics, eager to delegate, willing to tolerate public infighting while he plays for time–and oblivious to the tender sensibilities of our allies. Critics who accuse him of being “unilateralist” don’t know the half of it: his people ignore each other when it suits them. Sources tell NEWSWEEK that Cheney didn’t check his Iraq facts with the CIA; the State Department never saw the final text.
The public is still impressed by Bush’s leadership in the war on terrorism (a 68 percent approval rating in the latest NEWSWEEK Poll). But the wise guys in Washington and the world have again concluded–as they did a year ago–that he’s in over his head. They wonder if he’s missing the point of his summer reading, Eliot Cohen’s “Supreme Command,” which argues that the best wartime leaders don’t kowtow to their generals.
Cohen also says a “supreme commander” must know tactics and strategy as well as his military men do, be ruthless about replacing the brass and immerse himself in details of battle. Bush closely monitored fighting in Tora Bora last winter, said national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice, though not by “picking every target.” But the consensus is that the operation was botched, and someone (perhaps Gen. Tommy Franks) should have been fired.
For a former fraternity president, Bush, for the moment, seems an isolated figure. The idea of an attack on Iraq is al-most universally–publicly–condemned outside the United States. In Washington, he’s given up trying to forge bipartisan friendships in Congress, and seems more at home in early-morning phone calls to buddies such as Sen. Trent Lott. Bush, whose overall approval rating has dropped to 61 percent, can expect a rancor-filled fall, as the Hill debates how to revive the economy. If he chooses war, he’s expected to seek a congressional resolution–which he probably will win, but without cheers. When he addresses the United Nations next week (one theme: the fragility of “civilized societies”) he can expect wary applause.
But Bush is used to being underestimated. Indeed, he relishes it. In Texas he and Rice mused about the challenges faced 55 years ago by another president held in low esteem by the chattering classes. In 1947 Harry Truman rescued Greece and Turkey, advanced the Marshall Plan and declared the Truman Doctrine that eventually “contained” communism. Last June, Bush declared his own sweeping doctrine, which holds that America must strike pre-emptively against rogue states that possess weapons of mass destruction. It’s a principle as bold and controversial as Truman’s was. Bush merely has sketched the concept, which aides admit he needs to expand upon. True to form, Bush wants to elaborate on it on his own terms, on his own timetable. But the world is waiting–and this time no one else’s words will matter.
