George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

Despite the extremely narrow mandate he had extorted from the Congress, Bush now
appeared in a gloating press conference: he had his blank check for war and genocide.
Now Bush was careful to create pretexts for attacking Iraq, even if Saddam were to order
his forces out of Kuwait. Bush noted that "it would be, at this date, I would say
impossible to comply fully with the United Nations resolutions," and he "would still
worry about it, because it might not be in full compliance." [fn 75] UN resolution 242,
calling for Israel to withdraw from the territories occupied in the 1967 war, had been
flouted for almost a quarter century, and the nation of Lebanon had just been snuffed out
by Bush's friend Assad, but all of this paled into total irrelevance in comparison to the
need to destroy Iraq.
The mad dog of war was now unleashed on the world. Later, in early June, Bush would
edify the Southern Baptist Convention with a tearful and convulsive account of his long
night in Camp David as he prepared to give the order to attack. Bush's story, quite
fantastic for a chief executive who had pursued his "splendid little war" with
monomaniac fury since August 3, is a reflection of the Goebbels-like cynicism of the
White House wordsmiths and propaganda technicians to whom it may be safely
attributed. "For me, prayer has always been important but quite personal," Bush told the
Baptists. "You know us Episcopalians."
And, like a lot of people, I have worried a little but about shedding tears in public, or the
mention of it. But as Barbara and I prayed at Camp David before the air war began, we
were thinking about those young men and women overseas. And the tears started down
the cheeks, and our minister smiled back, and I no longer worried how it looked to others.
[fn 76]
In delivering this fanciful account, Bush broke into tears once again, a behavior which
showed more about his unresolved, and by that time public, thryoid difficulties, than it
did about his qualms in waging war. An interesting question involves the identity of the
minister mentioned by Bush. In order to drape his genocidal war policy with the mantle
of Christian morality, Bush was at pains to keep pastors and clerics at his side during the
development of the Gulf crisis. But a serious problem emerged in this regard when, in
late October, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Most Reverend Edmond
L. Browning, raised public questions about the morality of going to war with Iraq. Since
Bush regarded the Protestant fundamentalists of the Bible Belt as the indispensable
constituency for his vindictive line, he and his handlers were convinced that it would be
folly to go on the warpath without religious cover. This was provided by calling in Billy
Graham, the Methodist evangelist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
During the Nixon Administration, Billy Graham had become the virtual chaplain of the
regime. Nixon liked to organize prayer services inside the White House, and Billy
Graham was often called in to officiate at these. Graham was also an old friend of the
Bush family; just after Bush had received the GOP vice presidential nomination in 1980,
Graham had visited with George and Barbara at Kennebunkport for a campaign photo
opportunity. [fn 77]