In the National Security Council’s first meeting after President Bush entered the White House, “Advocating ‘going after Saddam’ during the January 30 [2001] meeting, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, according to [Treasury Secretary Paul] O’Neill, ‘Imagine what the [Middle East] region would look like without Saddam and with a regime that’s aligned with U.S. interests. It would change everything in the region and beyond. It would demonstrate what U.S. policy is all about.’ ”
– Dilip Hiro, “How Bush’s Iraqi Oil Grab Went Awry,” The Nation, Sep. 26, 2007