A few days after the events of September 11th, then-President George W. Bush gave a speech where he uttered the following line:

...this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile...

This, of course, raised the ire of many as it gave the appearance of a modern Holy War between Christianity and Islam.

His use of the word "crusade," said Soheib Bensheikh, Grand Mufti of the mosque in Marseille, France, "was most unfortunate", "It recalled the barbarous and unjust military operations against the Muslim world," by Christian knights, who launched repeated attempts to capture Jerusalem over the course of several hundred years.

In 2003, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld gave President Bush daily updates of military intelligence entitled "Worldwide Intelligence Update". On the WIU was a coversheet featuring Biblical quotes printed above military photos.

Above an image of a tank at sunrise:

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.

Above a soldier manning a gun in Bagdad:

Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.

Robert Draper of GQ was able to get copies from a government official who was appauled by the religious crusade imagery.

Even though the backlash would be catastrophic for the administration if the copies were leaked, the reports continued to be printed with religious texts on the covers.

These cover sheets were the brainchild of Major General Glen Shaffer, a director for intelligence serving both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of defense. In the days before the Iraq war, Shaffer’s staff had created humorous covers in an attempt to alleviate the stress of preparing for battle. Then, as the body counting began, Shaffer, a Christian, deemed the biblical passages more suitable. Several others in the Pentagon disagreed. At least one Muslim analyst in the building had been greatly offended; others privately worried that if these covers were leaked during a war conducted in an Islamic nation, the fallout—as one Pentagon staffer would later say—“would be as bad as Abu Ghraib.”

This was a crusade for Bush. Using the tragedy of September 11th as an excuse to attack Iraq, Bush needed a link. No matter how tenuous. So he used torture.

Finding a "smoking gun" linking Iraq and al Qaeda became the main purpose of the abusive interrogation program the Bush administration authorized in 2002, a former State Department official told CNN on Thursday...

..."Its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at preempting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al Qaeda,"...

It didn't seem to matter to Bush that there was no link. Intelligence agencies even advised him that there was no link...but he continued searching for one. Because he was on a crusade.

"Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn't any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies."

Even former Vice President Al Gore warned that the pre-emptive was devoid of merit. Of course, for that Charles Krauthammer called Gore's speech "a disgrace."

When torture failed to provide a link, the administration simply lied about Saddam seeking quantities of uranium from Africa.

Because Bush was on a crusade.