With media pundits hailing Bush as a conqueror, his approval ratings in public opinion polls soared as high as any on record for presidents. Then, when the occupying troops failed to find bin Laden, Bush expanded his war on terrorism to take in Al Qaeda, defined vaguely as gang or society of Islamic extremists. Next, he took on the garb of global policeman dedicated to combating third-world nations making up what he designated an axis of evil. On his list of evildoers, he placed foremost his father's old nemesis, the unsavory Saddam Hussein. For a litany of reasons but especially because this dictator possessed the potential for making nuclear and biological weapons, Bush claimed he posed a threat to American security.

Using this, other flimsy reasoning, and all the media and other powers of the presidency, Bush and his hawkish advisers, drummed up support for a preemptory strike, also called euphemistically "anticipatory self-defense," meaning in simpler language an unprovoked war against Iraq. Polls indicated a majority of Americans would support such a conflict but a small number of opponents questioned the administration's eagerness to drag the nation into another war, pointing out it had no hard data to back its fluctuating charges.