September 10, 2001 - U.S. OK'd plan to topple the Taliban and expel Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan.
QUESTION: How would they be allowed to do this without the events of 9/11? How can they prepare for a war before the reason for the war occurs?
Officials did not believe that Bush had had the opportunity to closely review the document in the two days between its submission and the Sept. 11 attacks. But it had been submitted to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, and the officials said Bush knew about it and had been expected to sign it.
The couching of the plans as a formal security directive is significant, Miklaszewski reported, because it indicates that the United States intended a full-scale assault on al-Qaida even if the Sept. 11 attacks had not occurred.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4587368/