"Then, in the immediate aftermath of the eleventh, not that much changed. The focus was on Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda. Some initial attempts by Wolfowitz" – Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense – "and others to draw Iraq in never went anywhere, because the link between Iraq and September 11th was, as far as we know, nebulous at most – nonexistent, for all intents and purposes. It’s somewhere in the first half of 2002 that all this changed. The President internalized the idea of making regime change in Iraq a priority. What I can’t explain to you is exactly the process that took us from the initial post-September 11th position, which was, Let’s keep the focus on Al Qaeda and Afghanistan, to, say, nine months later, when Iraq had moved to the top of the priority list for us. That’s a mystery that nobody has yet uncovered."

Aussage eines US-Regierungsbeamten in einem Artikel im New Yorker.