Notes taken by Stephen Cambone, then a senior policy official under Rumsfeld were released under FOIA request in 2006, showing that the Defense Secretary was intent on hitting Iraq in retaliation.

“Hard to get good case. Need to move swiftly,” the notes state. “Near term target needs – go massive – sweep it all up, things related and not.”

On the afternoon of 9/11, before any intelligence had been gathered, Rumsfeld was relaying orders to connect the attacks with Saddam Hussein as well as Osama Bin Laden.

“Best info fast. Judge whether good enough [to] hit SH at same time – not only UBL [Pentagon shorthand for Usama/Osama bin Laden],” the notes say. “Tasks. Jim Haynes [Pentagon lawyer] to talk with PW [probably Paul Wolfowitz, then Mr Rumsfeld’s deputy] for additional support … connection with UBL.”

Rumsfeld also wrote in his memoirs, Known and Unknown, released earlier this year, that he was asked by the president to draw up plans for the invasion of Iraq just two weeks after the attacks.

Thousands of de-classified documents accompanying the memoirs also revealed that Rumsfeld and his Pentagon aides were planning for regime change in Iraq BEFORE 9/11.

“If Saddam’s regime were ousted, we would have a much-improved position in the region and elsewhere,” Rumsfeld wrote in a memo to Condoleeza Rice dated July 27, 2001.

In the same ten year old memo, Rumsfeld also predicted Iran will “almost certainly have a nuclear weapon sometime within the next five years.”