President Bush first used the phrase "battle of Iraq" when he declared the major fighting over early last month, and he has stuck with it ever since. It's part of the White House strategy to link the campaign in Iraq — and Bush's re-election campaign — to the continuing war against terrorism.

Karl Rove, White House political adviser and Bush's chief message manager, has been among the most insistent that the Iraq conflict should be described as a battle.

Australian spooks aren't much like the spies in the James Bond movies. Not many drink vodka martinis. But most are smart - certainly smart enough to understand how US intelligence on Iraq was badly skewed by political pressure, worst-case analysis and a stream of garbage-grade intelligence concocted by Iraqis desperate for US intervention in Iraq.

It wasn't just the Australians who were mystified by the accumulating US trash. The French, Germans and Russians had long before refused to be persuaded by Washington's line. British intelligence agencies were still inclined to take a more conservative position. And the chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, even went so far as to say during a late April interview that "much of the intelligence on which the capitals built their case seemed to have been shaky".

So it was no surprise in some of the more mysterious corridors of Canberra last week when news broke about the CIA investigation into the US intelligence failure over Iraq. In fact, there was probably some relief, given the importance to Australian security of having the US intelligence system work properly.

Clinton's big sin was claiming, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," and then lying about it under oath. For trying to cover up a sexual affair, Clinton was impeached and barely escaped being driven out of office.

If,by restoring honesty and integrity to the Oval Office, Bush meant he would not have an affair with an intern, he has no doubt kept his word. On the other hand, one could quibble with the honesty and integrity of pre-emptively attacking another nation, Iraq, on the spurious claim that it harbored 100 metric tons or more of weapons of mass destruction.

One might also question the sincerity of a president, who as a candidate in 2000, promised to use only a portion of the projected $4.6 trillion government surplus over the next 10 years to cut taxes, then slashed taxes despite a burgeoning deficit.

To quote candidate Bush on Oct. 3, 2000, a month before the election, "I want to take one-half of the surplus and dedicate it to Social Security, one-quarter of the surplus for important projects, and I want to send one-quarter of the surplus back to the people who pay the bills. I want everybody who pays taxes to have their tax rates cut."

As president, Bush prodded the Republican Congress to wade into a sea of budgetary red ink by cutting taxes $1.35 trillion in 2001 and another $350 billion in a bill he signed last week. Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist predicted the latest tax cuts eventually will add up to $800 billion.

Upwards of $1 trillion of the tax cuts comes from the Social Security funds that Bush promised to protect.

Lionel Chetwynd, the writer-producer of this heartily pro-Bush movie, is a kind of west coast David Frum — a Canadian who has fully embraced the Bush revolution and even joined the administration (sitting on a White House arts committee).

His film — unlikely to enhance the reputation of Canadian filmmakers — portrays Bush as decisive and in-charge on 9/11, commanding officials on Air Force One to take him to Washington. "If some tinhorn terrorist wants me, tell him to come and get me! I'll be at home! Waiting for the bastard!"

Whoever was driving Air Force One apparently wasn't listening; as we know, the president was flown instead to Nebraska and only returned that evening to the White House, where Laura Bush was holding the fort.

One real-life scene unlikely to get much attention in the Hollywood epic was captured on video the morning of Sept. 11. It shows the president, right after he's been told a plane has hit the World Trade Center, strolling into a Grade 2 classroom at a Florida school. Minutes later, an aide informs him a second plane has hit the WTC. The president continues watching the children read a story about a pet goat and then chit-chats with them about reading. (This leaves the casting options wide open — Arnold Schwarzenegger as Bush, but Mr. Dress-Up would have worked too.)

Anyone who's seen that video will recall Bush's inscrutable look the moment he hears about the second plane. Does he realize the course of history has changed? Is he afraid of goats?

In researching his film, Chetwynd reportedly had "lengthy" interviews with Bush and top officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, Andrew Card and Karl Rove.

This access is in stunning contrast to the short shrift the administration has given to serious attempts to investigate 9/11, including efforts by a joint Congressional inquiry, which was denied access to top officials.

The White House is currently blocking publication of most of the inquiry's 800-page report. It is also putting roadblocks in the path of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, which Bush initially resisted establishing, but agreed to, under pressure from 9/11 families.

A relief organization estimates the deaths in the 4 1/2-year civil war at 3. 3 million. Corpses are found disemboweled. Women stagger into clinics with limbs hacked by machetes. The paltry U.N. troops are no match for the carnage.

The Bush administration told us the situation in Iraq met the standard of war because the people there were suffering so horribly. But if our government now does nothing about Congo, home to one of the most afflicted populations on Earth, then that rationale falls apart.

This has happened before. In the first Bush tax cut two years ago, families with another 8 million kids were kept from benefiting from any increase in the children's tax credit. Putting the two actions together, President Bush and his Republican rubber stamps in Congress have managed to sock it to 20 million poor kids - constituting half of all the African-American children in this country and at least 40 percent of the Latinos.

Precisely the same thing was done in the part of the tax legislation that deals with the so-called marriage penalty. In order to make the tax treatment of people who file jointly approximate the treatment of single people, the legislation two years ago made changes in the law so that both couples with relatively higher incomes and those with lower incomes would benefit. This is, after all, an allegedly pro-family government.

Not exactly. In the legislation that President Bush signed last week, the provisions affected higher-income couples were accelerated, while once again those seeking to equalize the tax treatment of married couples with lower incomes were intentionally not accelerated. ...

Being square with the working poor would have cost $3.5 billion. People should remember what happened the next time Bush gushes about how much he cares for working single moms struggling to make ends meet.