George W Bush, the man on a mission

US PRESIDENT Goerge Bush told Palestinians God also talked to him about Middle East peace. Bush has claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a senior Palestinian politician in an interview to be broadcast by the BBC later this month.

Bush revealed the extent of his religious fervour when he met a Palestinian delegation during the Israeli-Palestinian summit at the Egpytian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, four months after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: “President Bush said to all of us: ‘I am driven with a mission from God’. God would tell me, ‘George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan’. And I did. And then God would tell me: ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq’. And I did.”
Bush went on: “And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, ‘Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East’. And, by God, I’m gonna do it.”

Bush, who became a born-again Christian at 40, is one of the most overtly religious leaders to occupy the White House, a fact which brings him much support in middle America.

Soon after, the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz carried a Palestinian transcript of the meeting, containing a version of Bush’s remarks. But the Palestinian delegation was reluctant to publicly acknowledge its authenticity.
The BBC persuaded Mr Shaath to go on the record for the first time for a three-part series on Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy: Elusive Peace, which began last Monday.

Religion also surfaced as an issue when Bush and British premier Tony Blair were reported to have prayed together in 2002 at his ranch at Crawford, Texas –– the summit at which the invasion of Iraq was agreed in principle. Blair has consistently refused to admit or deny the claim.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian prime minister, who was also part of the delegation at Sharm el-Sheikh, told the BBC programme that Bush had said: “I have a moral and religious obligation. I must get you a Palestinian state. And I will.”
Mr Shaath’s comments came as Bush delivered a speech last week aimed at bolstering US support for the Iraq war.

Bush was born again as an evangelical Christian in 1985 with the help of Billy Graham, an American evangelist. The latter had a warning for the future president: “Never play God.”

As Bush went on from that pivotal moment to be elected Texas governor and win the presidency, fears have occasionally been raised that he has forgotten Mr Graham’s admonition.

The Faith of George W Bush, written in 2003, by a religious author, Stephen Mansfield, recounts several anecdotes about Bush’s sense of divine guidance. While he was still weighing up whether to run for the presidency, he apparently confided in a Texan evangelist, James Robinson, that he had a premonition of national tragedy.

“I feel like God wants me to run for president. I can't explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen,” Mr Bush said. “I know it won't be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it,” he said.

His personal story of redemption from hard drinking and hell raising was very much part of his 2000 campaign. Asked during a debate to name his favourite “philosopher-thinker,” Bush replied: “Christ, because he changed my heart.”

Since taking office, Mr Bush has steered away from claims of being a vehicle for divine power, but there have been lapses. Last year, he reportedly told an Amish group in Pennsylvania: “I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job.”

Soon after the September 11 attacks, Mr Bush spoke of a “crusade" against the country's enemies. The word was quickly expunged from the presidential vocabulary, but it appeared to echo a religious sense of mission in Mr Bush's mind. In his state of the union address two years later, he suggested that his pre-emptive foreign policy doctrine was also divinely inspired.

“This call of history has come to the right country,” he said. “The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity.’

The comments drew widespread attention.
However, Bush has arguably gone further in both word and deed than any modern president, and his critics have accused him of deliberately blurring the constitutional separation between church and state. Former White House officials have recounted how staff were expected to attend daily prayer meetings.

Billions of dollars have been set aside for "faith-based" groups, which President Bush believes to be more effective for social assistance than government programmes.

Suspicions of a creeping evangelical agenda ignited into outrage with the comments of a US general, William Boykin, responsible for leading the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

The war on terror, Lieut Gen Boykin told Christian groups in 2003, was a war against satan. Of the president, the general asked: “Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. He is in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this.”

After a brief investigation, the general was not only exonerated for improper remarks, he was promoted to deputy under-secretary of defence for intelligence.

Guardian