“At 8:55 am on Friday, February 14 [2003], the president [Bush] went down to the Situation Room for a briefing on how they would respond if there were a coup in Iraq…The president and the NSC [National Security Council] discussed a formal ‘Coup Scenario’ paper and agreed that if there were a coup, the US would immediately call on the new leader to turn over authority to a duly constituted, publicly supported Iraqi authority appointed by the US…Second, the United States would ask the new leader to consider inviting US forces in to eliminate the WMD and sever all of the previous regime’s terrorist ties…but they determined that a coup, with all its imponderables, would not stop the military invasion.”
– Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, Pages 315-316