A Reminder From Paul Krugman

That going to war in Iraq had nothing to do with intelligence (in any sense of the word).

The Iraq war wasn't an innocent mistake, a venture undertaken on the basis of intelligence that turned out to be wrong. America invaded Iraq because the Bush administration wanted a war. The public justifications for the invasion were nothing but pretexts, and falsified pretexts at that. We were, in a fundamental sense, lied into war.

You really can't say it much plainer than that. Despite the Nobel Prize, he speaks in a way that even I can understand. 

the talk about W.M.D that conflated chemical weapons (which many people did think Saddam had) with nukes, the constant insinuations that Iraq was somehow behind 9/11. 

Oh where have you gone, smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud?

Did the intelligence agencies wrongly conclude that Iraq had chemical weapons and a nuclear program? That’s because they were under intense pressure to justify the war. Did prewar assessments vastly understate the difficulty and cost of occupation? That’s because the war party didn’t want to hear anything that might raise doubts about the rush to invade. Indeed, the Army’s chief of staff was effectively fired for questioning claims that the occupation phase would be cheap and easy.

Why did they want a war?

Can't say for sure why they wanted it, but I have no doubt that Iran was next on their hit list, if Iraq hadn't turned into the giant debacle that anyone with any sense could have predicted. Oh yes, real men go to Tehran.

Just gotta add this Marco Rubio quote:

"The world is a better place because Saddam Hussein doesn't run Iraq," he said then. 

The world? Iraq is not even a better place because Saddam Hussein doesn't run it.