[244] It was not until May 2011, two years after Bush left office, that bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces under the Obama administration.
Despite the initial success in driving the Taliban from power in Kabul, by early 2003 the Taliban was regrouping, amassing new funds and recruits.[245] The 2005 failure of Operation Red Wings showed that the Taliban had returned.[246] In 2006, the Taliban insurgency appeared larger, fiercer and better organized than expected, with large-scale allied offensives such as Operation Mountain Thrust attaining limited success.[247][248][249] As a result, Bush commissioned 3,500 additional troops to the country in March 2007.[250]

Iraq invasion
Main article: Iraq War
President Bush, with Naval Flight Officer Lieutenant Ryan Philips, after landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln prior to his Mission Accomplished speech, May 1, 2003
Beginning with his January 29, 2002 State of the Union address, Bush began publicly focusing attention on Iraq, which he labeled as part of an "axis of evil" allied with terrorists and posing "a grave and growing danger" to U.S. interests through possession of weapons of mass destruction.