Bush turns America's fury towards Saddam
By Stephen Robinson in Washington (Filed: 26/11/2001) News-Telegraph (London)
LOOKING beyond what Washington now regards as an assured victory in Afghanistan, President Bush yesterday publicly laid out American strategy for tackling the terrorist threat from Iraq and beyond.
"Saddam is evil," said Mr Bush, the first time he had applied that adjective to the Iraqi dictator. "I think he's got weapons of mass destruction, and I think he needs to open up his country to let us inspect."
George W Bush: 'Saddam is evil' Mr Bush said it was obvious from Saddam's previous use of chemical weapons that he was a threat and harboured ambitions towards mass terrorism. "It's up to him to prove he's not," said Mr Bush, reversing the onus of proof.
Mr Bush used an interview with Newsweek magazine to identify Saddam as a target, and appeared to relish the prospect of finishing the job of neutralising the Iraqi dictator, which his father did not achieve after the Gulf war 10 years ago.
In effect, under a policy known within the administration as "coercive diplomacy", the Iraqi leadership will be told to readmit the expelled United Nations weapons inspectors or face military attack.
The next military assault would be much wider than the occasional air strikes launched by US and British jets enforcing the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq.
Mr Bush also cited Syria as a state that needed to "take a hard look at some of the groups in their country".
Other military objectives in the widening of the campaign against terrorism include a suspected al-Qa'eda training camp in Somalia detected by reconnaissance planes.
The CIA continues to believe that there are al-Qa'eda cells in Yemen and Sudan, despite public moves by both governments to satisfy Washington that they were taking action. Strikes against those countries could follow the completion of the Afghanistan mission.
Speaking at length for the first time since the attacks on September 11, the president appeared determined and confident about the course of the war.
He acknowledged that it could take time to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, but he was adamant that "we're going to get him one way or another".
Mr Bush said the primary goal had always been to disrupt bin Laden's activities, and that had been achieved now that he was on the run.
Mr Bush and his wife, Laura, spoke for the first time about the chaotic hours after the hijacked planes hit the World Trade Centre. Mr Bush was in a classroom surrounded by children and television cameras, trying not to betray his shock about the news as it was whispered in his ear by an aide.
"America is under attack, and I'm trying to absorb that knowledge," Mr Bush recalled. "I have nobody to talk to. I'm sitting in the midst of a classroom with little kids, listening to a children's story, and I realise I'm the commander in chief and the country has come under attack."
Mr Bush still bristles at criticism that he allowed the Secret Service to persuade him to fly to a nuclear bunker in Nebraska rather than return directly to the White House. He said rather defensively that he and his advisers were caught up in the "fog of war" and it took time for the right action to become obvious.
Later, on the night of September 11, Mr and Mrs Bush were told that, for security reasons, they should sleep on a camp bed in a reinforced bunker deep under the White House.
Mr Bush, whose fondness for early nights in his own bed is famous in Washington, refused and took his wife to their normal bedroom in the family quarters.
In the middle of the night they were awoken by a panicking aide, who told them an unidentified aircraft had been detected flying towards the White House. With that, the commander in chief abandoned all presidential dignity.
Dressed only in a T-shirt, running shorts and a pair of old shoes, he grabbed the two family dogs and led his wife, who could not find her contact lenses, back down to the nuclear bunker.
There they stayed, until an officer in uniform walked into their room, and said: "Mr President, good news! It's one of our own."