-- Excerpt from American Twilight: On the Edge of a New  Frontier  /  September 2003

Bush's political connection to Christian
supporters of the war in Iraq is deep and abiding --from Southern
Baptists to apocalyptic and fundamentalist ministries who, after the
onset of war with Iraq, were reported to have had unprecedented access
to the President in an exclusive White House audience held a week
after the March 19th US invasion.                  

After Bush's declaration of  "mission
accomplished" and "victory" in Iraq speech on the deck of the Abraham
Lincolm aircraft carrier in May 2003, the Washington Post reported that
a “private briefing” had been held between the President and “141
evangelical Christian leaders on March 27, 2003 to discuss the Iraq war
and other subjects.” Those invited included “Jerry Falwell, who
apologized last year for calling the prophet Muhammed a ‘terrorist’ and
broadcaster Marlin Maddoux, who has proclaimed an ‘irrefutable
connection’ between Islam and terror. Also invited were the President
of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is sending food to Iraq
labeled ‘grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ’ and Albert
Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who
said Iraqis are ‘desperately in need of the gospel.’”

On Easter Sunday in the spring of 2003,
the President chose to celebrate the holiest day in Christian belief,
the resurrection of Christ, at Fort Hood, Texas, the home of the 4th
Infantry Division, described often by the Pentagon as the “most lethal”
unit of the US Army.

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