They were then in planning mode, but waiting until fall to launch their full-throttle campaign to persuade Congress and the American people to back them. As White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, who oversaw the selling of the invasion, put it at the time, "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."

For them, it was a complete no-brainer. The U.S. military against Saddam Hussein's rickety army? It would be, as a neocon supporter put it, a "cakewalk." In fact, they were already thinking about where to turn next. As the insider quip of the pre-invasion months had it, "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran." One key figure, however, had his doubts. According to the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, Secretary of State Colin Powell offered this warning to the president: "You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people. You will own all their hopes, aspirations, and problems. You'll own it all." Woodward noted as well that "privately, Powell and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage called this the Pottery Barn rule: You break it, you own it."