Hello. I'm looking for sources (Academic/Scholarly, then respected
sources such as NY Times, etc) that relate to the situation the
leaders of the United States of America were in prior to the official
invasion of Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom; OIF). I will be using this
to apply Dr. Graham Allison's 3 Coneptual Models from his 1969 witing
"Essence of Decision"  and instead of using the Cuban Missile Crisis,
testing his models for validity with current events (OIF). I'm looking
for the sources to identify key points of strategic, moral, and
personal contention of leaders and nations during the period of time
up to the decision to invade.

My personel observation is Sadam Husain was one of several dictators
who were violating the civil rights of their citizens and guests in
their country and were threatening adjacent countries militarily, and
were giving aid and support to the world wide Islamic terrorist
organizations. The UN had issued numerious injunctions, which had been
partially ignored. I can't say why Iraq instead of North Korea or
Iran, but I think there was a concensis among the non-Islamic rich and
powerful and knowlegeable analysts, that strong action was needed,
perhaps long over due.
 Weapons of mass distruction may have been exagerated by the sometimes
reliable informants, but I think it will yet be determined that this
was a wise conscern. Less wise, perhaps, was a coveting of the oil
which Iraq will likely soon produce and pressure from Israel to invade
Iraq again. My guess is Al Gore would have done almost exactly the
same thing, perhaps less skilfully.  Neil