Very well in politics. He reached the highest peak. He was the president of the United States. But we must remember as has been pointed out in this statement that was released he was a texing otexas oil pioneer. He was a very successful businessman. He really gave that up to serve his country in another way outside of the military. Absolutely. There is an expression, you see this at his president ial library, i mean his office, his personal motto, he has two of them. One was faith, family and friends. And the second was to your point, any definition of a successful life must include service to others. So while a lot of people think of him as being raised in
grinwhich, and a new england born and bred welltodo family, he did go out and make his fortune, and he was pretty humble once he started out. Once he made money, he turned back to what he thought was most important, which was Public Service. Lets go onto talk about as well, so he became the 41st president of the United States, survi
secretary. and all of a sudden saddam hussein invaded kuwait. it was august 1st, august 2nd, 1990 and there was enormous uncertainty what was going to happen next. with the iraqis, they were moving through kuwait like a knife through butter. there was nothing stoppy the iraqis through kuwait, and president bush, he had to make some critically important decisions. and he made very important decisions to send a very strong signal through the defense secretary, through the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general colin powell at the time, the u.s. was going to respond militarily. eventually as we all know in january of 1991 the u.s. did respond in operation desert shield became operation desert storm. and within a few weeks the air war had done its mission and then the ground war.
2nd, 1990, you remember well when saddam went into kuwait, helen thomas asked the president twice whether he was contemplating intervention. he said i am not contemplating intervention of any kind. three days later, as he grew more concerned about the situation, he said memorably, this will not stand, this aggression against kuwait, and it s arguably the most memorable phrase of his public life. he wasn t sure that first day exactly what the scope of the problem was. i think president obama probably has a greater degree of certainty, at least the scope of the problem on terror, and i would hope and think that the president would speak more clearly and more consistently as well, more often, i should say, about this. i think it s an amorphous threat to many americans. we have seen it become all too
i can t this is president bush speaking i can t be off in a corner falling on my ideological sword. at that point as well as you know, you write about in 41, it s october, and what june 27th, 1990, is when the no new taxes pledge was broken and the statement was released. august 2nd, 1990, saddam invades kuwait. the budget negotiations roll in to columbus day. the last thing george herbert walker bush is going to do is put the trips in the field at risk with a government shutdown, a possible market dip when he has americans in harm s way. and gingrich went to him, gingrich told me this, gingrich went to him and said, just don t do it now. take the pledge back, go into the midterms in november and say, if you want a tax increase, you vote for the democrats, if you want lower taxes, vote for the republicans. and i honestly don t think that was in your father s imaginative
neighbor. he has moved part of his one million man army to kuwait. he claims kuwait stabbed iraq in the back way overproducing the oil. then on august 2nd 1990 the iraqi strong man struck. capturing kuwait with overwhelming force. the united states drew a line in the sand massing soldiers in saudi arabia to halt iraq s march. at sea, an embargo choke off the flow of goods. hussein threatened. i shall say that whoever collides with iraq will find in front of him columns of dead bodies. it is truly iraq against a majority in the arab world, iraq against the rest of the world. months of careful diplomacy led to a 45-day deadline set by the u.n. security council,