The Bush administrations and Saddam Hussein : deciding on conflict / Alex Roberto Hybel and Justin Matthew Kaufman.

"The authors present a vital and unsettling analysis of the foreign policy-making processes of the two Bush administrations prior to the attacks on Iraq. In a systematic and thorough comparison, they show how both presidents used historical analogies to evaluate information, relied on instinct to formulate decisions, and drew on moral language to justify their choices."--Publisher's website.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 179-186) and index.

Introduction : two surprises, two wars, two presidents, one family -- Ch. 1. Alternative theories of foreign policy-making -- Ch. 2. Two harmful surprises -- Ch. 3. logic of surprise versus the logic of surprise avoidance -- Ch. 4. Two very different wars -- Ch. 5. apple sometimes falls close to the tree -- Ch. 6. absence of a rational process.