Not quite inexplicable: exploring the Bush administration's response to terrorism

This article briefly explores the many ways in which the George W. Bush administration's response to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 do not conform to the predictions of the rational actor model. The article suggests that foreign policy decision-making models which focus on the behaviour of organisations and on bureaucratic politics provide far more satisfactory explanations for such matters as the failure to anticipate the attacks, the decision to attack Iraq, the exclusion of certain major actors from the policy making process and the failure to anticipate the difficulties which would follow on the invasion of Iraq.