"The coalition against Saddam has fallen apart or it's unraveling, let's put it that way. The sanctions are being violated. We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be or there's going to be a consequence should I be the president"
George W Bush 10-11-00,  2nd Presidential debate

With those words, future President George Bush had set one of the main agendas for his administrations the next four years. The specter of WMD was raised and the threat of regime change made. Within days of taking office, steps were beginning to be taken that put the nation on a course that would forever change its role in foreign affairs. Not since the days of Gilded Age Imperialism had an administration so pro-actively sought to take the nation to war. By May of 2001, the Bush administration was well on its way on that path to war with Iraq.

On January 29, 2001, just nine day after his inauguration, George Bush sat down in the White House with Imam Sayed Hassan al-Qazwini, the leader of the Islamic Center of America in Detroit. This would be the last of six meetings  that were held between the two men prior to the first meeting of the NSC. Their mutual desire for regime change in Iraq was one of the main topics of discussion that chilly winter day.
Over the following three days, Bush met with his new National Security Council twice.  By the evening of Feb 1, decisions had been made that would forever change the course of the history.  A path to war had been set, and as the events of the following year unfolded, the desires of the the two men would start to become a reality. By late the following December, Bush would met at his Crawford Ranch with Tommy Franks to finalize the plans for war with Iraq. The events of September 11 would pave the way to justifying the invasion to the American people, and it would only be a matter of time before the plans that began on that brisk January day would come to fruition