WASHINGTON (CNN) -- "Let's go." Those were the words uttered by President Bush to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, at 7:12 p.m. EST Wednesday, that authorized the United States to begin war with Iraq, an attack that rewrote the war plan Bush had given field commanders authority to execute at an emotional meeting just 11 hours earlier.

The two-word command came at the close of a nearly four-hour Oval Office meeting at which CIA Director George Tenet and Rumsfeld recommended altering the battle plan -- and significantly advancing the start of the war -- because of intelligence suggesting Saddam Hussein and other senior Iraqi leaders, including Saddam's two sons, Uday and Qusay, were gathered at a residential compound in Baghdad.