Bush Waging Personal War, Associates Reveal : Motivation: He’s out to get Hussein, as well as liberate Kuwait, they say. He’s described as determined yet calm.

In the privacy of the White House, President Bush refers to Saddam Hussein as “that lying s.o.b.” and has vowed to associates that the Iraqi dictator will no longer pose a menace to the Gulf region or be able to claim a victory of any kind when the war finally ends.

The President has personalized the conflict in his own mind, sources who have counseled him say, because he is convinced it springs from “the evil work” of one man--Hussein.

Given that mind-set, some Bush advisers expect the President to settle for nothing less than Hussein’s removal from power and the destruction of most of Baghdad’s war-making capability--not just the liberation of Kuwait.

“He’s not ready for this war to be over quite yet because there’s still too much of Saddam’s military machine left,” one senior government official said.

Reflecting this unwavering determination to rain punishment on Hussein and his forces, the President has developed a stock reply to all proposals from within the Administration for a pause in the bombing: “Let’s just stick to the plan,” he says.

In private, according to sources close to him, Bush has grown increasingly quiet and reflective as the war has progressed. And while he may rail about Hussein and express frustration at the dictator’s behavior, Bush is described as remarkably calm in approaching the most momentous decisions he has faced since entering the White House.

“The President is much quieter than any time that I’ve seen him over the past 10 years,” one source said. “He’s calm, too, but he’s also angry. You can see the anger in his eyes.”

“It’s on the President’s mind all the time,” said another longtime Bush associate, who believes the war has preoccupied him like nothing else since he took office a little over two years ago. “He’s totally focused and doesn’t want to discuss anything but the war. Talking about the ground war, he’ll say, ‘We’re not there yet, but we’re getting there.’

“In the past, when making decisions on other things, he would say, ‘Let’s move slowly and look at all the options.’ But not on the war. He’s decisive and knows where he’s going,” the associate said.

The President, some advisers say, has been more relaxed since the war started than he was in the weeks leading up to the commencement of hostilities on Jan. 17. “He was more intense in that period, and his face was puffy and he looked tired,” a longtime adviser said. “But now it’s a moral as well as strategic mission, and he’s much more relaxed.

“There will be no deviation whatsoever in terms of what we do in finishing this job,” the source said. “He’s not going to be deterred, I don’t care what kind of civilian casualties may occur, he feels we’re on the right course.”

The President, according to one of his advisers, believes that regardless of any concessions Hussein might offer, “we’ve got to destroy his capability to wage war now because if we don’t do that now, we’ll have to go to war again in the future.”

Bush is described as being dismayed and incensed at what he considers Hussein’s coldblooded disregard for his own people, for the military reality facing him, or for the truth.

“He just can’t accept it that Saddam doesn’t understand what all the United States can do to him,” a source said. “He can’t understand how Saddam can put civilians--women and children--in harm’s way. And he can’t understand Saddam’s lying. He says, ‘The guy lied to his own Arab colleagues. Why should I ever believe him? He’s a lying s.o.b.’ ”

Bush, who has never departed from the hard-line course against Hussein that he set when Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, was described by associates as “comfortable” with the idea of launching a full-scale ground war, despite the potentially heavy American casualties that could result.

A final decision to begin the ground phase of the conflict may come within days.

“Chemical weapons are the President’s biggest worry right now,” one source said, “because that’s the only option that Saddam has left.”

Describing the chief executive’s feelings on Friday, when Baghdad seemed for the first time to express willingness to withdraw from Kuwait, an associate said Bush was “one angry Texan” when it became clear that Hussein’s offer was accompanied by a long list of unacceptable conditions.

Upon first hearing of the Iraqi proposal early Friday morning, Bush told aides that if indeed Hussein was proposing to comply with United Nations demands and withdraw his forces from Kuwait unconditionally--as initial news reports suggested--”then, of course, we have to accept it as a peace proposal.”

“But I doubt it,” Bush was quoted as adding.

His doubts were confirmed a short time later by Prince Bandar ibn Sultan, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, who sources said translated the Arabic document into English for the President and his top aides over the telephone.

The White House had awakened Bandar about 7 a.m. (EST) with news of the Iraqi proposal. About 30 minutes later, King Fahd and the Saudi minister of information telephoned their embassy here saying they had a copy of the Iraqi proposal.

Then followed an extraordinary scene in which the minister of information read the document, with all its conditions, to Bandar in Arabic on one telephone, while the ambassador used a second telephone to translate it for Bush and his aides, including National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and his deputy, Robert M. Gates.

The President reacted with controlled anger, according to a knowledgeable source, and Bandar exclaimed that they were not only dealing with a con man but “a cynical con man.” There would be no letup in the aerial bombardment, Bush declared, and if Hussein were serious about peace negotiations, then he should first unconditionally withdraw his forces from Kuwait.

Later, in public, Bush dismissed the Iraqi formulation as a cruel hoax.

Bush’s insistence that an unconditional Iraqi withdrawal must precede any peace talks is explicitly aimed at humiliating Hussein, sources said.

Leaving no wiggle room whatsoever for the beleaguered dictator, Bush even urged the Iraqi people on Friday to overthrow their leader. “There’s another way for the bloodshed to stop,” he declared, “and that is for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands, to force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside.”

His attitude is shared by at least some Arab members of the anti-Iraq coalition, for whom eliminating Hussein has always been a major consideration.

Both Saudi and Egyptian officials, for example, have made clear since early in the conflict that a settlement that left Hussein in power--able to boast to Arab masses that he had successfully resisted the massive forces of the West--would build the Iraqi dictator into a hero who would pose a mortal threat to their regimes.

Israel, the target of repeated Iraqi Scud missile attacks, fears future problems with Hussein and has also called for his ouster.

Physically and emotionally, Bush’s advisers say, the President has remained pretty much on an even keel throughout the six-month-old Persian Gulf crisis and has not let its demands keep him from his regular exercise routine, sources close to the President say.

Known as a man of enormous energy who grows itchy and irritable if he is unable to exercise regularly, he works out indoors with a treadmill, an exercise cycle and a stair-climbing machine. Outdoors he plays tennis, pitches horseshoes and rides his speedboat.

Bush, according to associates, has been able to keep his equilibrium in part by making his decisions on tough problems and never looking back with regrets. He is described as able to put decisions behind him by saying, “Well, I’ve done the best I could, and that’s all I can do.”

Friends attribute this capacity to the advice Bush received from a physician who treated him for a bleeding ulcer he developed as a young man when he lived in Midland, Tex.

“The doctor,” one longtime adviser quoted Bush as saying, “told me I should work to the fullest on things I could handle, but I should put out of my mind things I couldn’t do anything about. I’ve done it ever since, and my ulcer was cured.”