In a session convened by Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle on September 19, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said: “It was important to topple the Taliban as quickly as the U.S. could, but that would not be enough. The United States needed to do more to demonstrate that there were serious consequences for mounting an attack on the U.S. and to show it would not suffer unsavory governments that were affiliated with terrorists. Rumsfeld had not proclaimed Iraq to be the next target, but he had made it clear that he felt there needed to be a Phase 2.”
– Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II, Page 21