“On February 5, 2001…[National Security Advisor] Condoleezza Rice chaired a principals meeting to discuss Iraq. According to [journalist] Bob Woodward’s account of this meeting the focus was mainly on enforcement of the no-fly zone. A week and a half later U.S. and British warplanes struck twenty command-and-control centers in Iraq, some very near Baghdad. …the raids did not signal that the president [Bush] was already committed to war in Iraq or to the agenda of the neocons. Instead the raids appear to have been prompted by genuine concerns within the uniformed military that Iraqi radar and anti-aircraft capability had to be hit hard in order to reduce the risk to U.S. pilots patrolling the no-fly zone.”
– Ian S. Lustick, Trapped in the War on Terror, Pages 55-56