> > > The theory that the United States went into Iraq to liberate it from a dictator and build a better society and a better life for the Iraqi people is the only one that fits the facts.
> >
> > ...except for that bit where we were initially going in because "Saddam had WMDs." As I recall things, freedom for the Iraqi people became a major objective only after a few months had gone by without our finding any weapons.
>
> You recall rather badly. The name of the operation before it even began was "Operation Iraqi Liberation," changed to "Operation Iraqi Freedom" later on (probably because, frankly, it just sounds better).

All this speculation is fun, but there's quite a bit of evidence about why the administration went to war. The fact is, like all administrations (and perhaps more so than some), the Bush administration is not a monolithic entity. Different people in the cabinet urged war for different reasons, and while it was ultimately the president's decision, who can say precisely what was in his heart?

We do, however, have a good idea. The war is a pretty natural outcropping of neoconservatism, the international relations theory (it is an attempt to replace the theory known as realism -- which essentially says to act exclusively in your own limited national interest) that holds spreading democracy is vital to the West's continued existence, and thus it is in our own national interest to sometimes bring down dictatorships by the sword.

The neocons have been around since roughly the Reagan era, and among their number are people like Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, who were two the architects of the case for war. Since the end of the first Gulf War, the neocons have been arguing that Saddam has to go, and in fact regime change in Iraq was made U.S. policy during the Clinton administration.

What I am trying to say is that there was no single reason to go to war -- it was a case of many different factors, including the perceived threat of WMDs and the more altruistic "spread democracy" aims of neoconservatism. Believing correctly that the nation was not really on-board with neoconservatism, the administration tried to sell the war to the public and the international community largely on the threat of WMDs angle.

A side note about oil: the world's oil supply is considered by pretty much everyone in power to be vital to our national interests. This fact was taken into account, but not in the "let's go take it all" sense. Rather, the argument is something like: aggressive dictators in the Middle East are especially dangerous, because if they launch wars it can screw up the world's economy.

Bob Woodward wrote a very good book about the build-up to war called "Plan of Attack." It focuses mainly on the roles of the top cabinet officials, and as is usual with Woodward's reporting, he had a crazy amount of access. It does not always paint a flattering picture of the administration, but it gives some great insight into how this administration made that decision (a fascinating counterpart to this book is his "The Commanders" about the administration of the elder Bush and its decision to go to war in Kuwait and Panama -- doubly fascinating because half the characters are the same in each book).

I really recommend the book to anyone who's interested in this discussion. Woodward's books read practically like novels and are constantly gripping (and as a Republican who helped bring down Nixon, I think Woodward is one of the few journalists partisans on both sides of the aisle enjoy equally).

Stephen