Initially resistant to the neoconservative argument to invade Iraq right away, President Bush felt himself increasingly drawn to the idea. The reasons were not only political, they were personal. "Bush developed a sense that there was unfinished business from the first Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s, that leaving Saddam in power had been a mistake,” recalled journalist Barton Gellman. “Bush was attracted to the idea of finishing something his father had left undone."