"I'm not foolish," the president continued. "They tell me, we don't need to move too fast, because the financial burdens on people will be so immense if we try to - if this guy were to topple. Who would take care of - I just don't buy that. Either you believe in freedom, and want to - and worry about the human condition, or you don't."

In case I didn't get the message, he added, "And I feel that way about the people of Iraq, by the way." He said that Saddam was starving his people in the outlying Shiite areas. "There is a human condition that we must worry about.

"As we think through Iraq, we may or may not attack. I have no idea, yet. But it will be for the objective of making the world more peaceful."

In Afghanistan, he said, "I wanted us to be viewed as the liberator."

I asked him specifically about the time in late October 2001 when he had told his war cabinet that a coalition was held together not by consultations as much as by strong American leadership that would force the rest of the world to adjust.

"Well," the president said, "you can't talk your way to a solution to a problem. And the United States is in a unique position right now. We are the leader. And a leader must combine the ability to listen to others, along with action.

"I believe in results. If I said it once, I said, I know the world is watching carefully, would be impressed and will be impressed with results achieved. It's like earning capital in many ways. It is a way for us to earn capital in a coalition that can be fragile. And the reason it will be fragile is that there is resentment toward us.

"I mean, you know, if you want to hear resentment, just listen to the word unilateralism. I mean, that's resentment. If somebody wants to try to say something ugly about us, 'Bush is a unilateralist, America is unilateral.' You know, which I find amusing. But I'm also - I've been to meetings where there's a kind of 'we must not act until we're all in agreement.' "

Bush said he didn't think agreement was the issue, and I was surprised at the sweep of his next statement.

"Well, we're never going to get people all in agreement about force and use of force," he declared, suggesting that an international coalition or the United Nations were probably not viable ways to deal with dangerous, rogue states. "But action - confident action that will yield positive results provides kind of a slipstream into which reluctant nations and leaders can get behind and show themselves that there has been - you know, something positive has happened toward peace."

Bush said a president deals with lots of tactical, day-to-day battles on budgets and congressional resolutions, but he sees his job and responsibilities as much larger. His father had with some regularity derided the notion of a "vision" or "the vision thing" as unhelpful. So I was also surprised when the younger Bush said, "The job is - the vision thing matters. That's another lesson I learned."

His vision clearly includes an ambitious reordering of the world through preemptive and, if necessary, unilateral action to reduce suffering and bring peace.

During the interview, the president spoke a dozen times about his "instincts" or his "instinctive" reactions, including his statement, "I'm not a textbook player, I'm a gut player." It's pretty clear that Bush's role as politician, president and commander in chief is driven by a secular faith in his instincts - his natural and spontaneous conclusions and judgments. His instincts are almost his second religion.

When I specifically asked about Powell's contributions, the president offered a tepid response. "Powell is a diplomat," Bush responded. "And you've got to have a diplomat. I kind of picture myself as a pretty good diplomat, but n.o.body else does. You know, particularly, I wouldn't call me a diplomat. But, nevertheless, he is a diplomatic person who has got war experience."

Did Powell want private meetings? I asked.

"He doesn't pick up the phone and say, I need to come and see you," Bush said. He confirmed that he did have private meetings with Powell which Rice also attended. "Let me think about Powell. I got one. He was very good with Musharraf. He single-handedly got Musharraf on board. He was very good about that. He saw the notion of the need to put a coalition together."

"I'LL GIVE YOU a tour," the president proposed after two hours and 25 minutes. We walked outside, and he climbed behind the wheel of his pickup truck and motioned me toward the pa.s.senger side. Rice and a female Secret Service agent squeezed into the cramped pa.s.senger back seat. Barney, his Scottie dog, parked himself between us in the front and was soon in his master's lap.

We wound slightly down from the flatlands into a small valley, where surprising rock formations probably 60 to 100 feet high could be seen in the distance. The president took each turn in the gravel road slowly, savoring the expanse. He provided a commentary on the trees and land, the deep forest areas and open plains. He noted downed trees that would need to be chopped up or patches of forest that seemed thriving, or where he himself had cleared cedars, a nonnative tree that takes precious water and light from nearby oaks and other hardwoods.

He seemed to have a particular destination in mind as he tucked the truck into a hidden corner of trees and stopped. We got out, having come perhaps two miles across his property. Rice said she was not going to get out because she did not have the right shoes. The Secret Service agent did not follow, so the president and I walked alone toward a wooden bridge about 20 yards away.

As we crossed it, a giant limestone rock formation maybe 40 yards across loomed above us, nearly white in color, shaped like a half-moon, with a steep overhang. It looked as if a mammoth seash.e.l.l had grown out of the Texas canyon. A tiny natural waterfall tumbled from the center of the overhang. The rock looked ancient, as old as the Roman catacombs. The air had a sweet, pungent smell that I could not identify. Bush started tossing rocks at the overhang, and I briefly joined in.

As we walked back, Bush again brought up Iraq. His blueprint or model for decision making in any war against Iraq, he told me, could be found in the story I was attempting to tell - the first months of the war in Afghanistan and the largely invisible CIA covert war against terrorism worldwide.

"You have the story," he said. Look hard at what you've got, he seemed to be saying. It was all there if it was pieced together - what he had learned, how he had settled into the presidency, his focus on large goals, how he made decisions, why he provoked his war cabinet and pressured people for action.

I was straining to understand the meaning of this. At first, this remark and what he had said before seemed to suggest he was leaning toward an attack on Iraq. Earlier in the interview, however, he had said, "I'm the kind of person that wants to make sure that all risk is a.s.sessed. But a president is constantly a.n.a.lyzing, making decisions based upon risk, particularly in war - risk taken relative to what can be achieved." What he wanted to achieve seemed clear: He wanted Saddam out.

Before he got back in his truck, Bush added another piece to the Iraq puzzle. He had not yet seen a successful plan for Iraq, he said. He had to be careful and patient.

"A president," he added, "likes to have a military plan that will be successful."

"CHENEY SAYS PERIL of a Nuclear Iraq Justifies Attack," Powell read in The New York Times from his vacation the morning of August 27. It was the lead story. The vice president had given a hard-line speech the day before, declaring that weapons inspections were basically futile. "A return of inspectors would provide no a.s.surance whatsoever of his compliance with U.N. resolutions," Cheney had said. "On the contrary, there is a great danger that it would provide false comfort that Saddam was somehow 'back in his box.' " He gave voice to his deep concerns about weapons of ma.s.s destruction that the war cabinet had heard many times. In the hands of a "murderous dictator" these weapons are "as grave a threat as can be imagined. The risks of inaction are far greater than the risk of action." Cheney's speech was widely interpreted as administration policy. The tone was harsh and unforgiving. It mentioned consultations with allies but did not invite other countries to join a coalition.

Powell was astonished. It seemed like a preemptive attack on what he thought had been agreed to 10 days earlier - to give the U.N. a chance. In addition, the swipe at weapons inspections was contrary to Bush's year-long a.s.sertions that the next step should be to let the weapons inspectors back into Iraq. That was what everyone - the U.N. and the United States - had been fighting with Saddam about since 1998 when he had kicked the inspectors out.

The day after Cheney's speech, Rumsfeld met with 3,000 Marines at Camp Pendleton in California. "I don't know how many countries will partic.i.p.ate in the event the president does decide that the risks of not acting are greater than the risks of acting,"

Rumsfeld said. Powell could decode this: Cheney had a.s.serted that the risks were in not acting, and Rumsfeld had said he didn't know how many countries would join if the president agreed with Cheney. Rumsfeld also said that doing the right thing "at the onset may seem lonesome" - a new term for acting alone, in other words unilateralism.

To make matters worse the BBC began releasing excerpts of an earlier interview that Powell had done in which he had said it would be "useful" to restart the weapons inspections. "The president has been clear that he believes weapons inspectors should return," Powell had said. "Iraq has been in violation of many U.N. resolutions for most of the last 11 or so years. And so, as a first step, let's see what the inspectors find. Send them back in."

News stories appeared saying that Powell contradicted Cheney, or appeared to do so. Suddenly, Powell realized that the public impression of the administration's policy toward inspectors in Iraq was the opposite of what he knew it to be. Some editorial writers accused Powell of being disloyal. He counted seven editorials calling for his resignation or implying he should quit. From his perspective all h.e.l.l was breaking loose. How could I be disloyal, he wondered, when I'm giving the president's stated position?

When Powell returned from his vacation, he asked for another private meeting with the president. Rice joined them over lunch on September 2, Labor Day, as Powell reviewed the confusion of August. Was it not the president's position that the weapons inspectors should go back into Iraq?

Bush said it was, though he was skeptical that it would work. He reaffirmed that he was committed to going to the U.N. to ask for support on Iraq. In a practical sense that meant asking for a new resolution. Powell was satisfied as he left for South Africa to attend a conference.

On Friday evening, September 6, Powell was back and joined the princ.i.p.als at Camp David without the president.

Cheney argued that to ask for a new resolution would put them back in the soup of the United Nations process - hopeless, endless and irresolute. All the president should say is that Saddam is bad, has willfully violated, ignored and stomped on the U.N. resolutions of the past, and the United States reserves its right to act unilaterally. endless and irresolute. All the president should say is that Saddam is bad, has willfully violated, ignored and stomped on the U.N. resolutions of the past, and the United States reserves its right to act unilaterally.

But that isn't asking for U.N. support, Powell replied. The U.N. would not just roll over, declare Saddam evil and authorize the U.S. to strike militarily. The U.N. would not buy that. The idea was not saleable, Powell said. The president had already decided to give the U.N. a chance and the only way to do that was to ask for a resolution.

Cheney was beyond h.e.l.l-bent for action against Saddam. It was as if nothing else existed.

Powell attempted to summarize the consequences of unilateral action. He would have to close American emba.s.sies around the world if they went alone.

That was not the issue, Cheney said. Saddam and the blatant threat was the issue.

Maybe it would not turn out as the vice president thought, Powell said. War could trigger all kinds of unantic.i.p.ated and unintended consequences.

Not the issue, Cheney said.

The conversation exploded into a tough debate, dancing on the edge of civility but not departing from the formal propriety that Cheney and Powell generally showed each other.

The next morning the princ.i.p.als had an NSC meeting with the president. They did a rerun of the arguments and Bush seemed comfortable asking the U.N. for a resolution.

During the speech-drafting process, Cheney and Rumsfeld continued to press. Asking for a new resolution would snag them in a mora.s.s of U.N. debate and hesitation, opening the door for Saddam to negotiate with the U.N. He would say the words of offering to comply but then, as always, stiff everyone.

So the request for a resolution came out of the speech. Meetings on the drafting continued for days. The speech a.s.sailed the U.N. for not enforcing the weapons inspections in Iraq, specifically for the four years since Saddam had kicked them out.

"You can't say all of this," Powell argued, "without asking them to do something. There's no action in this speech.

"It says, here's what he's done wrong, here's what he has to do to fix himself, and then it stops?" Powell asked in some wonderment. "You've got to ask for something."

So the princ.i.p.als then had a fight about what to ask for. What should the "ask" look like?

They finally agreed that Bush should ask the U.N. to act.

Powell accepted that, since the only way the U.N. really acted was through resolutions. So that was the implied action. Calling for a new resolution would have really nailed it, but the call to "act" was sufficient for Powell.

Tony Blair told Bush privately that he had to go the U.N. resolution route. David Manning, the British national security adviser, told Rice the same.

TWO DAYS BEFORE the president was to go to the U.N., Powell reviewed Draft #21 of the speech text the White House had sent him with EYES ONLY and URGENT stamped all over it. On page eight, Bush promised to work with the U.N. "to meet our common challenge." There was no call for the U.N. to act.

At a princ.i.p.als' committee meeting without the president just before Bush left for New York City, Cheney voiced his opposition to having the president ask specifically for new resolutions. It was a matter of tactics and of presidential credibility, the vice president argued. Suppose the president asked and the Security Council refused? Saddam was a master bluffer. He'd cheat and retreat, find a way to delay what was required. What was necessary was getting Saddam out of power. If he attacked the United States or anyone with the weapons of ma.s.s destruction available to him especially on a large scale - the world would never forgive them for inaction and giving in to the impulse to engage in semantic debates in U.N. resolutions.

Rumsfeld said they needed to stand on principle, but he then posed a series of rhetorical questions, and did not come down hard about the language.

Cheney and Powell went at each other in a blistering argument. It was Powell's internationalism versus Cheney's unilateralism.

"I don't know if we got it or not," Powell told Armitage later.

The night before the speech, Bush spoke with Powell and Rice. He had decided he was going to ask for new resolutions. At first he thought he would authorize Powell and Rice to say after his speech that the United States would work with the U.N. on them. But he had concluded he might as well say it himself in the speech. He liked the policy headline to come directly from him. He ordered that a sentence be inserted near the top of page eight, saying he would work with the U.N. Security Council for the necessary "resolutions." It was added to the next and final draft, #24.

"He's going to have it in there," Powell reported to Armitage.

At the podium in the famous General a.s.sembly hall, Bush reached the portion of the speech where he was to say he would seek resolutions. But the change hadn't made it into the copy that was put into the TelePrompTer. So Bush read the old line, "My nation will work with the U.N. Security Council to meet our common challenge."

Powell was reading along with Draft #24, penciling in any ad-libs that the president made. His heart almost stopped. The sentence about resolutions was gone! He hadn't said it! It was the punch line!

But as Bush read the old sentence, he realized that the part about resolutions was missing. With only mild awkwardness he ad-libbed it, adding two sentences later, "We will work with the U.N. Security Council for the necessary resolutions."

Powell breathed again.

The president's speech was generally a big hit. It was widely praised for its toughness, its willingness to seek international support for his Iraq policy, and its effective challenge to the U.N. to enforce its own resolutions. It was a big boost for Powell who stayed behind in New York to rally support for the policy, especially from Russia and France, who as permanent members of the Security Council could veto any resolution.

The next day Iraq announced that it would admit new weapons inspectors. Few believed it was sincere. See, the vice president argued, the U.S. and the U.N. were being toyed with, played for fools.

BUSH BELIEVED A preemption strategy might be the only alternative if he were serious about not waiting for events. The realities at the beginning of the 21st century were two: the possibility of another ma.s.sive, surprise terrorist attack similar to September 11, and the proliferation of weapons of ma.s.s destruction - biological, chemical or nuclear. Should the two converge in the hands of terrorists or a rogue state, the United States could be attacked and tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people could be killed.

In addition, the president and his team had found that protecting and sealing the U.S. homeland was basically impossible. Even with heightened security and the national terrorist alerts, the country was only marginally safer. The United States had absorbed Pearl Harbor and gone on to win World War II. For the moment the country had absorbed September 11 and gone on to win the first phase of the war in Afghanistan. What would happen if there was a nuclear attack, killing tens or hundreds of thousands? A free country could become a police state. What would the citizens or history think of a president who had not acted in absolutely the most aggressive way? When did a defense require an active offense?

Bush's troubleshooter, Condi Rice, felt the administration had little choice with Saddam. "The overwhelming, unmitigated disaster and nightmare is that you have this aggressive tyrant in a couple of years armed with a nuclear weapon, with his history and desire and willingness to use weapons of ma.s.s destruction," she said in an interview. "Are you prepared to let this nightmare stand?" Some intelligence experts said it would be four to six years before he had a nuclear weapon. "I've been in this business a long time and people always underestimate the time, they rarely overestimate the time. If we're wrong and we had four or five or six years before he posed a nuclear threat, then we just went early. If anyone willing to wait is wrong, then we wake up in two or three years, and Saddam has a nuclear weapon and is brandishing it in the most volatile region in the world. So which of those chances do you want to take?

"The lesson of September 11: Take care of threats early."

But the president proceeded as if he were willing to give the U.N. a chance and his public rhetoric softened. Instead of speaking only about regime change, he said his policy was to get Iraq to give up its weapons of ma.s.s destruction. "A military option is not the first choice," Bush told reporters on October 1, "but disarming this man is."

In a speech to the nation Monday, October 7, the one-year anniversary of the commencement of the military strikes in Afghanistan, the president said that Saddam posed an immediate threat to the U.S. As Congress debated whether to pa.s.s its own resolution authorizing the use of force against Saddam, Bush said war was avoidable and not imminent. "I hope this will not require military action," he said.

This was all a victory for Powell, but perhaps only momentarily so. The scaled-down rhetoric did mean that the president could say no to Cheney and Rumsfeld, but it did not mean a lessening of Bush's fierce determination. As always, it was an ongoing struggle for the president's heart and mind as he attempted to balance his unilateralist impulses with some international realities.

SOME DEMOCRATS AND important Republicans wanted a public debate about what to do about Saddam and Iraq. A few offered strong public criticism of the apparent rush to war, most prominently former Vice President Al Gore and Senator Ted Kennedy. The worry about Saddam was real, they argued, but he had not directly attacked the United States or another nation. The evidence about Saddam as an imminent threat was not convincing, they said. They also said that a military strike under the new untested policy of preemption could destabilize other countries in the Middle East, trigger more terrorism from Saddam or others, leave Israel more vulnerable to attack and overturn an American tradition of generally not striking first.

By early October the U.N. had not yet agreed on new resolutions. But on October 10 and 11 the House and the Senate overwhelmingly voted to grant the president full authority to attack Iraq unilaterally. The vote in the House was 296 to 133, and in the Senate 77 to 23. The Congress gave Bush the full go-ahead to use the military "as he determines to be necessary and appropriate" to defend against the threat of Iraq.

But it was not clear what might happen in the end with Iraq, whether Bush was headed for triumph or disaster or something in between.

Whatever his course, he will have available a CIA and military that are both more capable and more hungry for action than is generally recognized.

ON FEBRUARY 5, 2002, about 25 men representing three different Special Forces units and three CIA paramilitary teams gathered outside Gardez, Afghanistan, in the east, about 40 miles from the Pakistani border. It was very cold, and they were bundled in camping or outdoor clothing. No one was in uniform. Many had beards. The men stood or kneeled on this desolate site in front of a helicopter. An American flag was standing in the background. There was a pile of rocks arranged as a tombstone over a buried piece of the demolished World Trade Center. Someone snapped a picture of them.

One of the men read a prayer. Then he said, "We consecrate this spot as an everlasting memorial to the brave Americans who died on September 11, so that all who would seek to do her harm will know that America will not stand by and watch terror prevail.

"We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of our great nation."

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

Simon & Schuster and The Washington Post backed this project with the same enthusiasm, trust and flexibility they have shown me over the last three decades. They are family for me.

Alice Mayhew, vice president and editorial director at Simon & Schuster, guided this project with her usual determination, focus and genius. No one can get a book edited and published better or faster. Originally conceived as the story of President George W. Bush's first year in office, with a focus on his domestic agenda and tax cut, the book took a ma.s.sive redirection, as did much else in this country, after the terrorist attacks last September 11.

Leonard Downie Jr., executive editor of The Washington Post, and Steve Coll, its managing editor, again gave me the freedom to pursue this independent account while the record was still available and fresh. They are extraordinary editors who practice journalism in the best traditions of the great Benjamin C. Bradlee.

Don Graham, the Post's chief executive officer, and the late Katharine Graham, who died shortly before September 11, 2001, represent a special breed, the very best owners and bosses.

Dan Balz, the national political reporter at the Post, collaborated with me on the eight-part series "Ten Days in September," about the beginning of the crisis that was published in the Post from January 27 to February 3, 2002. Dan is one of a handful of truly wonderful journalists working in America - astute, quick, careful and fair-minded. He taught me a lot, and working with him was one of the best experiences of all my time at the Post. With the permission of the Post, I have used some of the material published in that series. A special thanks to one of the finest, most talented editors in the business, Bill Hamilton, who edited the series.

One of the other recent pleasant professional experiences for me at the Post was working with a group of exceptional national reporters on the September 11 coverage - Thomas E. Ricks, Dan Eggen, Walter Pincus, Susan Schmidt, Amy Goldstein, Barton Cell-man and Karen DeYoung. Our coverage won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.

I owe more than thanks to a group of editors at the Post who supervised me, prodded me, helped me think through the information and rewrote my copy. These are the men and women in the trenches you don't hear about that often. Reporters don't get to first base or even to bat without them. I am thinking especially of Jeff Leen, Lenny Bernstein and Matt Vita. They are the unsung heroes of journalism. Special thanks to Liz Spayd and Michael Abramowitz, who run the national staff, for all their help, a.s.sistance and graciousness.

Dana Priest of the Post national staff has done the finest and most exhaustive reporting on the U.S. Special Forces operations in Afghanistan. I have relied on it, independently confirmed her original work, and I give her special thanks.

Mike Allen, White House correspondent for the Post, is one of the most gifted and diligent reporters. Selfless and a gentleman wise beyond his years, Mike a.s.sisted me many times, in many ways, most recently on my visit to Crawford, Texas. He is a true friend. I thank his colleague Dana Milbank, the Post's other gifted regular White House correspondent. Others who helped me whom I wish to thank include Vernon Loeb, Bradley Graham, Alan Sipress and Glenn Kessler.

In my view, The Washington Post foreign staff did the best job covering the war in Afghanistan on the ground; I have relied on the news accounts and a.n.a.lysis of a dozen of our foreign correspondents, especially Susan Gla.s.ser, Peter Baker, Molly Moore and John Ward Anderson.

Olwen Price transcribed many interviews expertly, often under immense time pressure. I deeply appreciate her efforts. The great Joe Elbert and his even greater photo staff at the Post provided many of the pictures in this book. Many thanks to Michael Keegan and Richard Furno.

At Simon & Schuster, Carolyn K. Reidy, the president, and David Rosenthal, the publisher, moved this book from ma.n.u.script to bookstore shelves in near record time. How is still a mystery to me. I also thank Roger Labrie, the a.s.sociate editor; Elisa Rivlin, the general counsel; Victoria Meyer, the director of publicity; Aileen Boyle, the a.s.sociate director of publicity; Jackie Seow, the art director and jacket designer; Jennifer Love, the managing editor; Paul Dippolito, the designer; John Wahler, the production manager; and Mara Lurie, the production editor. Special thanks to Jonathan Jao, a.s.sistant to Alice Mayhew, for many a.s.sists.

I give special thanks to Fred Chase, who traveled from Texas to Washington to copyedit the ma.n.u.script. He lent us his keen eye, sharp ear and wise head.

I was aided by the reporting and a.n.a.lysis of the war on terror in The New York Times, whose coverage set the standard for comprehensiveness and clarity, teaching all of us in journalism a great deal. Newsweek, Time and U.S. News & World Report provided new information and some extraordinary coverage as did the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker and the a.s.sociated Press.

Robert B. Barnett, my agent, attorney and friend, provided wise advice and guidance as always. Since he also represents former President Clinton, Bob did not see the book until it was printed.

Jeff Himmelman, a former research a.s.sistant, spent several days reading the ma.n.u.script, improving it with suggestions large and small. He also a.s.sisted Dan Balz and myself on the "Ten Days in September" series. Josh Kobrin was of immense help to Mark Malseed and myself.

Thanks again to Rosa Criollo, Norma Gianelloni and Jackie Crowe.

My daughters, Tali and Diana, make life truly interesting.