273presidents sometimes find wars forced upon them, whether by cir-
cumstances or their own commitments. Lincoln inherited a secession
crisis that left him no alternative to war besides disunion; Wilson
allowed the decisions about whether and when the United States would
enter the First World War to be made in Berlin; Franklin Roosevelt
responded to threats from Germany and Japan in ways that made war
inevitable; and Cold War logic drove Johnson to resist communist
aggression in Vietnam.
For George W. Bush, by contrast, Iraq represented a war of choice.
In the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, nothing dic-
tated that the United States must overthrow Saddam Hussein. Presi-
dential discretion extended to how the United States might conduct a
military operation in Iraq. Bush had at his disposal a large, technologi-
cally advanced military with no immediate competing demands on
American troops.
Th is striking degree of latitude did not last. Th e president let much
of it slip from his grasp by delegating responsibility for preparing for
war, particularly to his secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and by
not exercising close oversight over the planning process. Because
Pentagon civilian planners paid too little attention to the diffi culties
5
Th e Perils of Optimism
George W. Bush