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President Bush gestures while being briefed on the Persian Gulf war with Iraq at the Pentagon in this Jan. 18, 1991 file photo. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney is at left, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Colin Powell, is a right. As his father before him, President George W. Bush was transformed into a wartime president by Tuesday's events. But few, not even the elder Bush, believe that the president can orchestrate the kind of offensive that enabled the first Bush administration to prevail over Iraq in a 1991 war that lasted a mere month.
U.S. President George W. Bush (2nd L) pauses during a statement with members of his National Security Advisors Secretary of State Colin Powell (C) and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (R) and Vice President Dick Cheney at Camp David September 15, 2001. Bush declared Saturday that "we're at war" against the perpetrators of last Tuesday's terror attacks on New York and Washington.