“The second objective outlined by [President] Bush [in his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002] broadened significantly the terms of reference of the ‘war on terror’ as they had been defined by his address to Congress on September 20 [2001]. From now on, Bush declared, U.S. policy would be dedicated to preventing ‘terrorists and regimes who seek chemical, biological or nuclear weapons’ from threatening America and the world. And the American president left his audience in no doubt as to the identity of the ‘regimes’ he had in mind. Referring to North Korea, Iran, and Iraq as an ‘axis of evil,’ Bush reserved his severest criticism for Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.”
– Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page xxxii