Introduction I''m going to kick his sorry motherfucking ass all over the Mideast. -President George W. Bush EARLY ON the afternoon of May 1, 2002, George W. Bush slipped out of the Oval Office, grabbed a tennis racquet, and headed to the South Lawn. He had a few spare moments for one of his recreational pleasures: whacking tennis balls to his dogs, Spot and Barney. It was a pleasant spring day in Washington and not an especially taxing one for the president. He had no pressing political worries. Having routed the Taliban regime in Afghanistan the previous fall, Bush was standing tall in the polls, with an approval rating hovering at 70 percent.

That morning, there had been his usual terrorism briefings, then meetings with congressional leaders where Bush had talked about moving forward his domestic proposals, including a measure promoting faith-based social programs. Later in the day, the president was due to meet the vice president of China. Bush also had an unusual press interview on his schedule that afternoon. As he hit the balls and watched the dogs scamper, Bush prepared for that session with two press aides by reviewing questions he would likely be asked about one of his predecessors he admired most: Ronald Reagan. Ever since September 11, 2001, Bush had increasingly identified with Reagan: his optimism, his firm convictions, his stark, uncompromising stand against Soviet communism. Bush had come to consider Reagan''s battle against the Soviet Union a parallel of his own struggle against Islamic extremism. The Evil Empire was now the Axis of Evil-that trio of tyrannies, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, that Bush had proclaimed the nation''s foes months earlier during his first State of the Union speech. Frank Sesno, the veteran newscaster, was due shortly at the White House to query Bush about Reagan and the parallels between his presidency and Bush''s.

The interview was for a History Channel special that would air upon the death of the former president, who was ninety-one years old and suffering from advanced Alzheimer''s disease. On a two-page "pre-brief " memo prepared by his staff and containing questions that might be asked,Bush had written out by hand points he wanted to emphasize. The presidential scribbles, his aides thought, were revealing-perhaps a window onto Bush''s view of himself. "Optimism and strength," Bush had scrawled on top of the memo. Also, "decisive" and "faith." Next to a question about Reagan''s direct, blunt style, Bush had written, "moral clarity." He had drawn an arrow next to the word "forceful." Alongside a question about the 1983 suicide bombing attack on the U.

S. Marines barracks in Lebanon (which killed 241 American troops) and how a president copes with such losses, Bush had written, "There will be casualties." On the South Lawn, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer and another member of the communications staff, a burly, irrepressible former television producer named Adam Levine, reviewed these points with Bush. Then they all moved inside and headed upstairs to the Red Room so Bush could have makeup applied for the interview. Bush casually asked Fleischer how his day had been going and what the talk in the pressroom was. Fleischer mentioned Helen Thomas, the longtime correspondent then writing for Hearst News Service. She was a gadfly and constantly giving Fleischer a tough time about an issue much in the news: Iraq. Bush and other administration officials had been decrying Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq, as a threat to the United States and the world.

To many, it sounded like war talk. The media were filled with speculation that the White House was preparing for an invasion. But Bush had steadfastly refused to state his intentions. His aides repeatedly claimed that Bush had reached no decisions. Interviewed by a British broadcaster a few weeks earlier, Bush had resorted to a Clintonesque evasion: "I have no plans to attack on my desk." At that day''s daily press briefing, Thomas had peppered Fleischer with questions about Iraq. Referring to stories in the media about secret plans for military action, she asked, "What is the president''s rationale for invading Iraq?" What made Saddam different from other dictators and worth an invasion? Fleischer bantered with Thomas and pointed out that "regime change" in Iraq had been the official policy of the U.S.

government since President Bill Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998. Thomas shot back: Did the law mandate that the United States overthrow the Iraqi government by force? Bush, Fleischer said, "believes that the people of Iraq, as well as the region, will be more peaceful, better off without Saddam Hussein." Thomas retorted, "That''s not a reason" to go to war. "Well, Helen," Fleischer replied, "if you were the president, you could have vetoed the law." The reporters chuckled, and Fleischer called on another journalist. As Fleischer recounted this exchange for the president, Bush''s mood changed, according to Levine. He grew grim and determined-steely. Out of nowhere, he unleashed a string of expletives.

"Did you tell her I don''t like motherfuckers who gas their own people?" the president snapped. "Did you tell her I don''t like assholes who lie to the world?" "Did you tell her I''m going to kick his sorry motherfucking ass all over the Mideast?" Fleischer paused. "I told her half of that," he replied. Bush laughed, as did his aides. Still, Bush''s visceral reaction was telling. This wasn''t bluster; this was real. The president had meant what he said-every word of it. This was the Bush that Levine admired.

"You know where we''re going here," Levine thought. The vice president''s limousine sped through downtown Washington and headed over the Potomac River on its way to Langley, Virginia. It was days after Bush''s outburst, and Dick Cheney was making another of his visits to CIA headquarters. These trips-unknown to the public at this point-had become the talk of the intelligence community. Cheney would arrive at agency headquarters and park himself in Director George Tenet''s seventhfloor conference room. Then officers and analysts would be summoned to brief him-on Iraq and other matters-and often encounter a withering interrogation. How do we know this? What more do you have on that? What have you done to follow up? Cheney was proper and respectful. His questions were delivered in his soft, low, monotone voice, his arms folded.

Still, they had an intimidating impact on his briefers. "I''ve seen him people," said John Maguire, an Iraq covert operations officer who often attended the Cheney briefings. "He would drill in on substantive details. If he asked you something that you didn''t know, you better have an answer the next time you saw him. He would say, ''I want answers on this. This is not acceptable.'' " The worst thing to do with Cheney was to hedge or to waffle. "He''d say, ''Make a call,'' " Maguire recalled.

He didn''t want to hear sentences that began, "We don''t know." During these sessions, Cheney demanded answers on Iraq. Cheney had long-standing and firm views on Saddam Hussein that went back to when he had served as secretary of defense during the first Persian Gulf War. Cheney had been convinced then that the CIA had blown it by badly underestimating how close Saddam had been to building a nuclear bomb before that war. And ever since the cataclysmic events of September 11, Cheney seemed obsessed with Iraq. He was sure that Saddam was a grave threat to the United States-and that the agency was missing the crucial intelligence that would prove it. In February 2002, Cheney had seized on a murky item presented to him during his daily morning briefing from the CIA: a report forwarded to the CIA by Italian military intelligence that Iraq had arranged to purchase 500 tons of yellowcake uranium from the impoverished African nation of Niger. If the report was accurate-if there had been such a transaction-this would be compelling evidence Iraq had revived a moribund nuclear weapons program that had been dismantled in the mid-1990s under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

But there was nothing to substantiate the report, and parts of it did not make sense. Still, Cheney had jumped on it. What more can you get on this? he had asked his CIA briefer. What more can you find out? As always, the answer from the CIA was, We''ll get on this right away. And it did. Another issue Cheney fixated on was Baghdad''s ties to terrorists, especially the allegations of a connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda. The agency would write up answers to the vice president''s repeated questions and send them to his office, often reporting that there was little to substantiate Cheney''s darkest suspicions of an operational alliance between Saddam and Osama bin Laden. But Cheney and his hard-nosed chief of staff, I.

Lewis Libby (who went by the nickname of Scooter), were never satisfied and continually asked for more. "It was like they were hoping we''d find something buried in the files or come back with a different answer," Michael Sulick, deputy chief of the CIA''s Directorate of Operations, later said. There was no "obvious pressure" by Cheney and Libby to change the answers, Sulick recalled. But the barrage of questions and the frequent visits by the vice president had created an environment that was subtly, but unmistakably, influencing the agency''s work. The CIA''s analysts, Sulick believed, had become "overly eager to please." Libby may have been harder to please than Cheney. He was one of the most powerful officials in the Bush White House. As Cheney''s top national security adviser, he oversaw a "shadow" National Security Council, with tentacles reaching deep into the foreign policy and defense bureaucracy.

One NSC staffer recalled being stunned to discover, years afte.