(1946- )
The son of President George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush was elected president of the United States in a controversial election in November 2000. At first, he seemed somewhat overwhelmed in the position, but he quickly gained wide support in the United States when he responded forcefully to the al-Qaida terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001.
His administration publicly promised to continue to maintain the no-fly zone protecting the Iraqi Kurds. In the fall of 2002, President George W. Bush demanded that Saddam Hussein disarm and leave the country or the United States would lead a war to disarm him. When the Iraqi dictator refused, Bush attacked on 19 March 2003 and quickly overthrew the Iraqi regime. However, no weapons of mass destruction were ever discovered and the United States soon became bogged down in a complicated guerrilla civil war that has led to more than 4,300 U.S. and countless Iraqi deaths as of this writing. As a result, the younger president Bush became very unpopular in both Iraq and the United States. In the area ruled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), however, he has remained a hero for his actions that have allowed the Kurds to achieve goals unimagined in the past.
Historical Dictionary of the Kurds. Michael M. Gunter.