WASHINGTON, March 14 (Xinhuanet) -- Three years after the U.S.-led invasion, the Iraq war is dominating George W. Bush's presidency and defining his legacy, the USA Today newspaper reported Tuesday.

    As Franklin Roosevelt is remembered most for his leadership during World War II and Lyndon Johnson for Vietnam, presidential scholars and some of Bush's own advisers predicted that history would judge Bush by his decision to order a preemptive attack on Iraq in March 2003, and by the long-term consequences of America's first war of the 21st century, the front-page report said.

    Many of the president's signature programs and proposals, such as No Child Left Behind, individual investment accounts in Social Security, and tax simplification, have either been overshadowed, beaten back, or shelved.

    And the "comprehensive conservative" he described in 2000 has been replaced by a wartime president arguing the need to stay the course in a conflict that lasted longer and cost more than Most Americans imagined when it began, according to the report.

    The administration was expecting to move on to other issues in Bush's second term like Social Security reform and the "ownership society," but all that had been pushed aside because of Iraq, political scientist Steven Schier was quoted as saying.

    Nearly two-thirds of Americans said the Iraq war would be what Bush was most remembered for, according to a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll taken last Friday and Saturday.

    The invasion of Iraq has shaped not only what the president has done in office - including not only what the president hopes will spark democracy across the Arab world - but also what he's been unable to do because of the war's demands, the report said.

    "There's no question the president's legacy will be dominated by Iraq," March McKinnon, a top adviser in Bush's presidential campaign, was quoted as saying. Enditem