Iraq, Katrina were Bush's downfall: former aides

Wondering why George W. Bush went from being one of the most popular U.S. presidents in history to record low disapproval ratings?  Blame the weather, two former White House insiders have told the magazine Vanity Fair.

Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina, which pulverized New Orleans and the Gulf coasts of Mississippi and Louisiana in 2005, ended a long period of public approval, said Mathew Dowd, former White House political strategist and pollster.

"Katrina to me was the tipping point," Dowd tells Vanity Fair in what's described as an "oral history" of the Bush administration. "The president broke his bond with the public. Once that bond was broken, he no longer had the capacity to talk to the American public.

"State of the Union addresses? It didn't matter. Legislative initiatives? It didn't matter. PR? It didn't matter. Travel? It didn't matter."

Dan Bartlett, former White House communications director and later counsellor to the president, told the magazine: "Politically, it [Hurricane Katrina] was the final nail in the coffin."

Their comments are part of a wide ranging series of quotes, each tied to a specific event during Bush's eight-year presidency,  to be published in the magazine's February 2009 edition but already available online.

Canada's Graham weighs in

Vanity Fair correspondents sought responses from Bush allies and opponents, senior civil servants,  Republican and Democratic party strategists and foreign leaders and officials.

Canada's former foreign minister, Liberal Bill Graham, tells the authors of the article that he was struck by the combative and unco-operative tone of Bush's first defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.

"[He] was an extremely intelligent person with a lot of experience," Graham says, "but Mr. Rumsfeld was not about listening and being co-operative. [He] was about getting the way of the United States."

Former U.S. national security official and counter-terrorism official Richard Clarke also accuses Rumsfeld of wanting to attack Iraq within hours of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States,

"I found it a little disgusting that they were talking about [Iraq] while the bodies were still burning in the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre," Clarke says.

Bush missed a great opportunity to unite the American people and the rest of the world against al Qaeda and international terrorism in the wake of the attacks, according to Matthew Dowd.

"He was given a great window of opportunity where everybody wanted to be called to some shared sense of purpose and sacrifice and all that — and Bush never did it," Dowd says. "Bush decided to say that the best thing is: Everybody go about their life, and I'll handle it."

Impressed by White House calm: Matalin

Not everyone interviewed for the piece by Vanity Fair is critical of Bush.

Veteran Republican strategist and political commentator Mary Matalin says staff at the White House, where she was employed at the time, responded calmly and effectively to the challenges of fighting terrorism — on Sept. 11 and beyond.

"Right from the get-go, people were mature," Matalin says. "That's not the right word, but there wasn't hand-wringing and hair on fire and Keystone Kops or anything like that. 'Professional' doesn't even scratch the surface."

The 35-page article covers a broad range of issues, from the controversy over stem cell research to the financial meltdown that accelerated and became headline news several months ago.

But much attention is given the war in Iraq and what's perceived as persistent mishandling of almost every aspect of the conflict, from botched intelligence over weapons of mass destruction to ensuring calm in the country after the fall of  its dictator, Saddam Hussein.

"At the end of the day, I think the divisiveness of this presidency will fundamentally come down to one issue: Iraq," says Bartlett, the former White House communications director. "There weren't weapons of mass destruction. I think the public's tolerance for the difficulties we face would've been far, far different had it felt like the original threat had been true."