George W. Bush administration

Background and rise to power

Bush, a Republican, was Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. The 2000 election was decided by the Supreme Court's ruling in Bush v. Gore on 12 December 2000, which ended the Florida recount, and he was inaugurated on 20 January 2001. On 11 September 2001 al-Qaeda attacks killed nearly 3,000 people, and the administration launched the war in Afghanistan in October 2001. In his State of the Union address of 29 January 2002 he named Iraq, Iran and North Korea an "axis of evil". He won re-election on 2 November 2004 and left office on 20 January 2009.

How power was organized

Elections, Congress, the courts and a privately owned press continued to operate throughout. Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act on 26 October 2001, created the Department of Homeland Security in 2002 and authorised the use of force in Iraq in October 2002. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (Robb-Silberman, 2005), the Government Accountability Office and the Department of Defense Inspector General each reviewed parts of the administration's public messaging, and their findings are the basis for the claims below. The roster of this page is a dated list of senior officials named in the archive's write-ups, not a full cabinet.

The propaganda apparatus

White House. In August 2002 Chief of Staff Andrew Card formed the White House Iraq Group, a weekly meeting to set communications strategy on Iraq. On 7 September 2002 Card told the New York Times: "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." The group's work and the public statements that followed are set out in How the US and UK governments presented the case for war in Iraq, 2002-03. The administration's press secretaries were Ari Fleischer (2001 to 2003) and Scott McClellan (2003 to 2006).

State Department. Charlotte Beers, a former advertising executive, was Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy from October 2001 to March 2003, and Karen Hughes held the post from 2005 to 2008. On 5 February 2003 Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the case on Iraq's weapons to the UN Security Council; the slide of truck-mounted laboratories is held in the collection as Mobile Production Facilities for Biological Agents. Later inquiries found the claim rested largely on one source, and they placed the failure in the intelligence process rather than finding that Powell knew it was false.

Defense. The Pentagon's public affairs office under Assistant Secretary Victoria Clarke embedded reporters with units in the 2003 invasion and, from October 2002, briefed retired officers who worked as paid network analysts (campaign write-up; case study). The programme was suspended in April 2008 and the GAO found no violation of the covert-propaganda rule. Coalition forces air-dropped leaflets before the invasion, among them the February 2003 warning against using weapons of mass destruction, held in the collection as Coalition leaflet warning Iraqi units not to use weapons of mass destruction.

Homeland security. The Homeland Security Advisory System, a five-colour threat scale set up by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 3 of 12 March 2002, ran until 2011 and drew bipartisan criticism for giving the public no base rate or specific action (the chart).

Broadcasting abroad. The Broadcasting Board of Governors ran Radio Sawa for Arabic audiences from 2002 and Alhurra television from 2004, and TV Martí for Cuba (TV Martí set, 2008).

Carrier address. On 1 May 2003 Bush landed on USS Abraham Lincoln and announced the end of major combat operations under a banner reading "Mission Accomplished". The White House said its staff produced the banner at the Navy's request, and in 2008 Bush said it had sent the wrong message (the photograph).

The Iraqi side. The government the administration fought is covered on Ba'athist Iraq on the same terms, and the earlier Kuwaiti and US campaign of 1990 in The Nayirah testimony.

Timeline

• January 2001: Bush inaugurated (20 January).
• September to October 2001: attacks of 11 September; war in Afghanistan begins; USA PATRIOT Act signed (26 October).
• January 2002: "axis of evil" in the State of the Union (29 January).
• March 2002: Homeland Security Advisory System announced (12 March).
• August to October 2002: White House Iraq Group formed; Congress authorises force in Iraq in October.
• February 2003: Powell addresses the UN Security Council (5 February).
• March 2003: invasion of Iraq begins (20 March).
• May 2003: "Mission Accomplished" address (1 May).
• June 2004: Coalition Provisional Authority transfers sovereignty (28 June).
• July to September 2004: Senate Intelligence Committee report on prewar intelligence (9 July); Iraq Survey Group final report finds no stockpiles (30 September).
• November 2004: Bush re-elected (2 November).
• March 2005: Robb-Silberman Commission reports.
• April 2008: Pentagon analyst programme suspended.
• January 2009: Bush leaves office (20 January).

Same-standard note

This page uses the same structure and definitions as every other regime page. It sits with the other democratic wartime administrations in the archive, among them Wilson and Roosevelt, and differs in scale, intent and context from the one-party state in Ba'athist Iraq, whose press was owned and directed by the party. The administration's messaging was examined in public by Congress, a commission, the GAO, the Pentagon's inspector general and the press, and the archive cites those reviews and does not substitute its own verdict on the decision to go to war. The roster is a selection, not a complete cabinet list.

Sources

• Archive write-ups: Iraq WMD case, 2002-03, Pentagon military analysts, Nayirah testimony.
• Inquiries cited there: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq (9 July 2004); Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (31 March 2005); Iraq Survey Group, Comprehensive Report (the Duelfer Report, 30 September 2004).
• Addresses: State of the Union, 29 January 2002, American Presidency Project.
• Portraits: none hosted; each person's entry says so.

In the archive

Collection objects (23)

Case studies

• How the US and UK governments presented the case for war in Iraq, 2002-03
• The Pentagon's retired military analyst outreach programme (2002-2008)
• The Nayirah testimony: a Kuwaiti government PR campaign at a House human rights caucus

Campaign dossiers

• Pentagon retired military analyst outreach (2002-2008)

Campaign literature

• All US presidential elections, 1789 to 2024