George W. Bush — 43rd President (2001–2009)

**George W. Bush** was a wartime president who defined his presidency by his response to 9/11 — the most significant attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. He rallied the nation, launched the War on Terror, invaded Afghanistan and then Iraq, created the Department of Homeland Security, and signed the largest expansion of Medicare since its creation (Part D). His presidency is defined by the tension between the decisive leadership of the immediate post-9/11 period and the catastrophic strategic miscalculations that followed, particularly the Iraq War based on faulty intelligence about weapons of mass destruction.