yeah, i remember an article about that. funny in a dark way.

the foreign policy/natsec apparatus spun itself up to discredit the story as unfounded, because psychotic religious excitation was not the flavor of empire people had been sold. the neocon brand in those days was about being the wise adults in the room, taking care of business. of course, 20 years later, the apocalyptic death cult is a big constituency in the US and they have many people in high office praying for JFK Jr. to descend from the clouds and put Jim Caviezel on a white horse at the head of an purifying army. that was not the vibe 20 years ago among the rank-and-file war supporters, lol. it was about democracy and weapons of mass destruction and the burden of being the world's police.

In the winter of 2003, when George Bush and Tony Blair were frantically gathering support for their planned invasion, Professor Thomas Römer, an Old Testament expert at the university of Lausanne, was rung up by the Protestant Federation of France. They asked him to supply them with a summary of the legends surrounding Gog and Magog and as the conversation progressed, he realised that this had originally come, from the highest reaches of the French government.

President Jacques Chirac wanted to know what the hell President Bush had been on about in their last conversation. Bush had then said that when he looked at the Middle East, he saw "Gog and Magog at work" and the biblical prophecies unfolding. But who the hell were Gog and Magog? Neither Chirac nor his office had any idea. But they knew Bush was an evangelical Christian, so they asked the French Federation of Protestants, who in turn asked Professor Römer.

He explained that Gog and Magog were, to use theological jargon, crazy talk.