Michael Gordon Quotes on America (2 Quotes)

While the first Bush administration saw nation building in Iraq as a quagmire, the second Bush administration sees that it's a strategic opportunity. The first Bush administration was afraid they'd be stuck. American troops would be staying there forever. It would be a chaotic country, might fall apart. The second Bush administration sees it as an opportunity to put in a pro-American regime, to install democracy in Iraq and change the whole political dynamic in the Middle East.

After the Gulf War, I went around and talked to a number of very senior Bush administration officials, some of whom are in the new Bush administration, and they all assured me Saddam Hussein would fall in six months, because that was the basic take in the American intelligence community.