A bunch of reasons that added up in their NeoCon, delusional minds.
1) Free a people from the tyranny of an evil dictator
2) Create a Democracy smack dab in the middle of that part of the world
3) Unfinished business, clean up for Daddy
4) Oil
Not on the list is WMDs, because I don't believe that was part of the equation. It was purely a tactic to get the American People, Congress, the Rest of the World, the media, and some of the people in the room helping make the decision on board.
The smart people in the room almost certainly knew that Saddam had no WMDs to be concerned about. At best, it was a minimal, periphery reason for going.
It was very obvious when Colin Powell was used as a pitch man for the War that he didn't believe what he was saying and his heart wasn't in it. He hated Saddam a lot, but couldn't stand lying to the American people and everyone else...and didn't think it was an excuse to go to War. That's my opinion anyway. I think he convinced himself that in the chain of command, the Commander in Chief gave him a direct order and if he couldn't convince him of a different course of action, he'd have to go along with the plan. in his eyes, he was caught between a rock and a hard place and had to go along. I'll always believe that. Cheney might have been the mastermind, and Bushy, a pawn.
1, 2 and 3. No 4. Yes.
The smart people in the room know that the American leadership supports tyrants all arround the world and freeing people is the last thing on their "things to do" list. If it was wrong for the Communist to export communism why is it exceptable to export our form of goverment.
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."
It was the Iraqi citizen "right", or rather their "duty" to throw off the bonds of oppression. (In fact they tried that after the first war and then President Bush ignored their pleas for help)
Furthermore, no where in the Constitution does it give the Governement the right to use the military in such a fashion.
As far as Daddy's unfinished business, here's what Pappa had to say about invading Iraq to dethrone Saddam.
Excerpt from "Why We Didn't Remove Saddam" by George Bush [Sr.] and Brent Scowcroft, Time (2 March 1998):
While we hoped that popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.
So his son, President Bush help to destroy the pattern for handling aggression in the post cold-war era that his father helped set by becoming the aggressor.
That leave only number 4. Control Oil.
