This report is adapted from an interview for the book, "Bush at War," an inside account of the debate within the Bush administration that led to U.S. military action in Afghanistan and the decision to confront Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Simon & Schuster ©2002 by Bob Woodward.
President Bush has outlined an expansive, even grandiose, view of the role the United States must play in combating terrorism and tyranny that suggests a tension in his own mind -- and the minds of his aides -- between the need for international cooperation and the belief that at times this country will have to act alone.
"We're never going to get people all in agreement about force and use of force," he said in an interview. "But action -- confident action that will yield positive results -- provides kind of a slipstream into which reluctant nations and leaders can get behind and show themselves that there has been -- you know, something positive has happened toward peace."
It is perhaps Bush's most direct statement on the need for unilateral action by the United States as the shaping force in the world. The interview took place Aug. 20, before the president adapted a more internationalist approach in the confrontation with Iraq by seeking -- and winning -- a United Nations resolution to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. At the time, he said, he had not made up his mind about what steps should be taken against Iraq.
"As we think through Iraq," he said, "we may or may not attack. I have no idea yet. But it will be for the objective of making the world more peaceful."
In the 21/2-hour interview at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., Bush, dressed informally in jeans, a short-sleeved shirt and cowboy boots, answered a variety of questions about the war on terrorism, his management style and the lessons he learned from his father's presidency.
Reflecting on his own personality, he described himself at various points as "fiery," "impatient," "a gut player" who liked to "provoke" people around him and someone who likes to talk -- perhaps too much -- in meetings. He admitted that first lady Laura Bush had told him to tone down the "tough guy" rhetoric on terrorism. And he said he had a clear idea of his own priorities.
"First of all," he said, "a president has got to be the calcium in the backbone. If I weaken, the whole team weakens. If I'm doubtful, I can assure you there will be a lot of doubt."
But it was his vision of the broad global role he says the United States must play that seemed to reflect a change in his thinking since the world -- and his presidency -- was transformed by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"At this moment in history, if there is a world problem, we're expected to deal with it," the president said. "It's the price of power. It is the price of where the United States stands. We will."
The problems Bush believes the United States must confront are not just strategic, but also humanitarian.
"Let me see if I can articulate this," Bush said. "Yes, in some ways it is, that a person that thinks in terms of liberating a country, and at the same time fighting a war, is someone who also understands that we've got to deal with suffering."
It was for this reason, Bush said, that he had pressed Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to drop humanitarian aid into Afghanistan before the U.S. bombing campaign began.
"I was sensitive to this [accusation] that this was a religious war, and that somehow the United States would be the conqueror. And I wanted us to be viewed as the liberator," Bush said. Humanitarian concerns, he said, were also behind the necessity of confronting Iraq and North Korea.
"Clearly, there will be a strategic implication to a regime change in Iraq, if we go forward. But there's something beneath that, as far as I'm concerned -- and that is, there is immense suffering. Or North Korea. Let me talk about North Korea. I loathe Kim Jong II. I've got a visceral reaction to this guy because he is starving his people."
In Bush's view, Kim presents the U.S. with a clear and obvious choice. "They tell me, we don't need to move too fast [against Kim] because the financial burdens on people will be so immense if we try to -- if this guy were to topple. Who would take care of -- I just don't buy that. Either you believe in freedom, and want to -- and worry about the human condition, or you don't. I don't know if that gives you insight as to how I think."
Elaborating, he said that underlying his foreign policy "there is a value system that cannot be compromised, and that is the values that we praise. And if the values are good enough for our people, they ought to be good enough for others, not in a way to impose because these are God-given values. These aren't United States-created values. These are values of freedom and the human condition and mothers loving their children."
Yet simply proclaiming these values is not enough. "You can't talk your way to a solution to a problem," Bush said. "And the United States is in a unique position right now. We are the leader. And a leader must combine the ability to listen to others, along with action."
Any success the United States achieves on its own, Bush suggested, will strengthen its ability to build an international coalition, and he was dismissive of charges that the U.S. government acts unilaterally.
"If somebody wants to try to say something ugly about us, 'Bush is a unilateralist. America is unilateral.' You know, which I find amusing."
'The Vision Thing Matters'
Although Bush said a president deals with a myriad of tactical decisions and day-to-day battles, he sees his responsibilities as much larger. His father, President George H.W. Bush, derided with some regularity the notion of a "vision" or "vision thing." But his son made clear he disagrees.
"The job is -- the vision thing matters," Bush said. "That's another lesson I learned."
"See, I think my job is to stay ahead of the moment. A president, I guess, can get so bogged down in the moment that you're unable to be the strategic thinker that you're supposed to be, or at least provoke strategic thought. And I'm the kind of person that wants to make sure that all risk is assessed."
In commanding the war on terrorism, his aides have said Bush is a stickler for details on operational questions and tactics. But Bush sees his main role as constantly probing for signs of complacency and unclear thinking.
"I can only just go by my instincts," he said. "Listen, I am a product of the Vietnam world. There is a very fine line between micromanaging combat and setting the tactics" on one hand, and "to kind of make sure there is a sense of, not urgency, but sense of purpose and forward movement."
In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, he said, he worried that the United States had lost its edge. "My job is to make sure that that blade is sharp."
On Wednesday, Sept. 26, just two weeks after the terrorist attacks, Bush surprised his war cabinet, which had been debating when to begin the bombing of targets in Afghanistan, by declaring: "Anybody doubt that we should start this Monday or Tuesday?"
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld eventually convinced Bush that planning was incomplete and the bombing should not begin for another week. Bush said he was intentionally prodding his aides.
"One of my jobs is to be provocative," he said. "Seriously, to provoke people into -- to force decisions, and to make sure it's clear in everybody's mind where we're headed. There was a certain rhythm and flow to this, and I was beginning to get a little frustrated. . . . It was just not coming together as quickly as we had hoped. And I was trying to force the issue without compromising safety."
Did he ever explain what he was doing?
"Of course not," he said. "I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."
Later in the interview, he described how he sees his role another way. "I guess it's just I've tried to think a step ahead. A president must do that. And the other job of -- that I have is to ask questions to -- some of them may be the questions that aren't worth asking, but nevertheless, I'm not afraid to ask them. That's one of the things that I'm now very comfortable with. There is no such thing as a dumb question, by me or anybody else on our team."
Full of self-confidence himself, he said he wanted his aides to be just as convinced of what they are doing. "I don't need people around me who are not steady," he said.
Bush said he doesn't expect everyone in his war cabinet to have the same opinion. "I've grown very comfortable with them as human beings and as people that were capable of handling their responsibilities. And therefore I -- and when they give advice, I trust their judgment. Now sometimes the advice isn't always the same, in which case my job -- look, the job is to grind through these problems and grind through scenarios, and hopefully reach a consensus of six or seven smart people, which makes my job easy."
"Sometimes," he admitted, "I get in there and talk too much in these meetings, where I just kind of blow off steam. I say that because that is -- that is not a good habit at times. It is very important to create an environment in which people feel comfortable about speaking their mind."
Rice, who sat in on the interview, interjected that after Bush leaves a meeting, "then we butt heads a little."
"And that's good, by the way," Bush said. " It is -- if everybody had the same opinion and the same prejudices and the same belief structure, it would be a dull administration. I would not get the best advice."
But the media, he said, invariably had an effect on people. "I don't read the editorial pages. I don't -- the hyperventilation that tends to take place over those cables, and every expert and every former colonel, and all that, is just background noise."
He said he realized, however, that not everyone could tune it out. "We've got these very strong people on the National Security Council who do get affected by what people say about them in the press."
A lesson Bush said he learned from his father's presidency was how to organize his own White House. He said he had established a system so that five aides -- Rice, former communications director Karen Hughes, political aide Karl Rove, chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and press secretary Ari Fleischer -- could see him on the spur of the moment. "All power should not go through an individual at the Oval Office," he said.
He had learned this from observing his father's presidency, especially during the first three years when the chief of staff, John Sununu, controlled access with such an iron first that those with bad news often couldn't get through.
Bush added that he does not think access to the president should be confined to the senior staff, because "part of the job satisfaction of being a White House staffer is the capacity to talk to the president one-on-one."
His father's late political strategist, Lee Atwater, had told him, "Access is power." Bush said he learned this firsthand in 1988 when his father was running for president. "I can remember going to the vice president's house, and they'd be getting ready to have the campaign team come over. And I would be there about, you know, about 20 minutes before they arrived so they would see me with Dad.
"They didn't have any idea. We were probably talking about the pennant race or, you know, a brother or sister. They didn't know that. They knew that I had access to him, that it was just me and him alone. It was a very interesting lesson. I watched my stature grow the more that I had access to him."
'Tone It Down, Darling'
Toward the end of the interview, Bush was joined by his wife. He had just finished saying she had once told him that when talking about terrorists, " 'You need to make sure your rhetoric isn't quite as harsh about killing them.' And in other words, she was more concerned about kind of the West Texas . . . . tough guy."
"I didn't like the 'get them dead or alive,' " Laura Bush said.
"Why?" the president asked. "I just didn't," she said.
Why, the president persisted.
"It just didn't sound that appealing to me, really," she said. "I mean, I have -- I just said, 'Tone it down, darling.' "
Bush admitted he hadn't toned it down. And, said Laura Bush, "Every once in a while, I had to say it again."
Mark Malseed contributed to this report.