George Bush set the US on the path to war in Iraq with a formal order signed in February 2002, more than a year before the invasion, according to a book published yesterday.
"On February 16 2002, Bush signed a secret national security council directive establishing the goals and objectives for going to war with Iraq, according to classified documents I obtained," Mr Scarborough wrote, in an account of the "global war on terrorism" as seen from the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary.
The next month, he writes, the head of central command, General Tommy Franks, conducted a "major Iraq war exercise code-named "Prominent Hammer", and in April he briefed the joint chiefs of staff on the invasion plan.
Ivo Daalder, an official in Bill Clinton's national security council, said a national security presidential directive was "the most formal way that decisions by the president and others are communicated to the rest of the government."
Rumsfeld's War is by Rowan Scarborough, the Pentagon correspondent for the conservative Washington Times newspaper, which is known for its contacts in the defence department's civilian leadership.
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