George Bush’s memoirs underway

Any hopes Americans might have had of consigning George W Bush (pictured) to distant memory are to be dashed. For the President claims he is 30,000 words into a memoir about his two terms in office which he intends using to justify some of his most controversial and unpopular policy decisions, such as the invasion of Iraq and his lackluster response to Hurricane Katrina.

Discussing the book, Bush told the Associated Press: “I want people to understand the environment in which I was making decisions. I want people to get a sense of how decisions were made and I want people to understand the options that were placed before me."

The book would, he said, contain self-criticism, but he told AP that "hindsight is very easy" and that he wanted readers to understand events in the way he saw them at the time. “I want to recreate what it was like, for example, right after 9/11, and have people understand the emotions I felt and what others around me felt at the time," he said.

The book, which has been acquired by the Crown division of Random House - which also publishes Barack Obama and Condoleezza Rice - is scheduled for publication in 2010, and will focus on around 12 choices the former US president made on both a presidential and personal level, including his religious faith and his decision to quit drinking. Its provisional title, Decision Points, references the title Bush gave himself, The Decider.

There is no word on the advance Dubya received, or if he is writing the book entirely on his own, but it is unlikely to match Bill Clinton's reported $15m deal for his 2004 memoirs My Life. Sceptics wonder how many copies the Bush tome will sell - especially because the release date coincides with the publication of his wife Laura's memoirs.