GLOBE EDITORIAL
Meet the president
2/9/2004
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2004/02/09/meet_the_president/PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH summed it up succinctly: "I'm not going to change, see?" In an hourlong interview with Tim Russert on "Meet the Press," conducted Friday and aired yesterday, Bush consistently defended actions that many Americans now question.
Pre-war intelligence failures on Iraq did not trouble Bush. Although he conceded the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction he expected to find have not materialized, Bush said the larger point is that Saddam Hussein was "a madman" who had used such weapons in the past and "had the ability to make weapons, at the very minimum."
For instance, when he was pressed on the administration's rationale for war against Iraq because it was an imminent threat, Bush said, "I believe it is essential that, when we see a threat, we deal with those threats before they become imminent. It's too late if they become imminent. It's too late in this new kind of war."
Does this mean that Bush would strike militarily against potential threats? Is this a new policy that goes beyond preemptive action against supposedly real, immediate threats and contemplates attacks on imagined ones? Bush would do better to admit that the Iraq war rationale was off base, though he could still argue the result was worthwhile.
But this appealing acknowledgment stood apart. The rest of the interview showed Bush grimly obstinate. "I'm a war president," he said, referring repeatedly to the war on terrorism as the defining mission of his presidency. But he continues to stumble over inconvenient facts as he marches straight ahead.