For Better or Worse, It's Becoming 'Bush's War' All may not be well at the White House if the president feels compelled to assert, as George W. Bush did in a television interview last week, that "the person who is in charge is me." If a president has to state the obvious � in 1995, Bill Clinton memorably announced that he was still relevant � it is even more likely that something, somewhere, is wrong. In this case, it was the management of Mr. Bush's Iraq policy, or at least the public's perception of it. The president's comment was meant to drive home the message that the American occupation would now be overseen by the White House, not the Pentagon. Specifically, Iraq policy would be run by the new "Iraq Stabilization Group," led by Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, who works down the West Wing corridor from Mr. Bush and is one of his closest aides. To a lot of the president's critics and some of his supporters, the change was an overdue attempt by the White House to gain control of what the chattering class calls "Rummy's war," but which history will remember as Mr. Bush's war. Others, though, say the shift represents a significant risk for Mr. Bush. The decision-making, they argue, is now even closer to the Oval Office, with no one but the president to blame when things go badly. "It raises the political stakes considerably," said David M. Kennedy, a professor of history at Stanford. "The president has essentially denuded himself of possible political cover, should he need it. It strikes me as a sign of real political urgency, and possible political desperation, that he is ready to take this into the White House and expose himself in that way." http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/19/weekinreview/19BUMI.html