ABSTRACT
The Bush administration began debating the invasion of Iraq before the fires of 9/11 were extinguished. At a National Security Council meeting at Camp David two days after the attacks, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz first suggested that Iraq needed to be at the center of the response. Disarming Saddam was the lead topic of strategic conversation for the next eighteen months, dominating the airwaves and newspapers with arguments for and against. While many things can be said about that invasion, it was certainly not underconsidered by the foreign policy elite.
