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was not enough time for the US to prove WMD-related information to be true in practice—just in
the media. President Bush started the “spectacle phase” of the Iraq war, the “war of choice,”
very soon after he received information about Saddam Hussein’s exact position in Baghdad.
The “decapitation strikes” carried out at the start of the war were still not executed swiftly
enough because he lost high-value target number one, Saddam Hussein, for a few minutes.
The President’s decision to perform a military strike came too late to efficiently take advantage
of the “opportunity window” or the “moment of opportunity” as he himself called it. Therefore the
military was not able to take advantage of the moment in a lethal way. Bush has been criticized
that he missed the opportunity because he had failed to wage “an effective war on terror” (Fal-
lows 2004a.) A reason for this may be that Bush has focused on imagined threats at the ex-
pense of the “real war on terror” rather than focusing on the “real terror lords,” the “real terror
threats” or the “real nuclear threats.”
President Bush has requested more active participation from other countries, calling on more
efficient conflict management activities from the international community. The President’s re-
quest for increased performance abroad is no novel idea in recent US history. For example the
1986 Nichols-Goldwater Act summarizes the goals of Congress in enacting defense reforms as
“providing for more efficient use of defense resources.” Hence, the US wishes to enhance “the
effectiveness of military operations.” The US is not alone in looking for or demanding more ef-
fective ways to handle the new kinds of challenges in the security environment. United Nations
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has also come up with a modernization plan on ways to increase
the UN’s effectiveness in dealing with new threats. These are typical phrases to be found on
political level narratives in order to solve conflict management problems and violence in conflict
zones.
Phrases by political persons often highlight how the future should be more peaceful. Presiden-
tial speeches usually express a great deal of hope and expectations because raising the peo-
ples’ hopes and expectations is the president’s task. The problem about complex international
political procedures and President Bush so far is that he is a man of action rather than one to
patiently wait for the right moment to act, consider a course of action or to make the decision
not to act at all. Most of all, in the President’s call to unite the nation (and the world) is the typi-
cal paradox of President Bush. Americans want a president who can unify diverse people and
interests, but the President stands by his unpopular or controversial decisions that necessarily
upset and divide. (Cronin and Genovese 1998, 4)
troops, there are 45,000 from Britain and about 2,000 from Australia. Denmark and Spain have sent a small number of troops,
though not, apparently, for ground combat.”
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Convention