Why did the US invade Iraq?

The intel about Saddams WMD programs came from INSIDE the upper echelons of the Iraqi government. Nearly every western nations intelligence service agreed that that it was a credible threat. When Saddam refused to allow UN weapons inspectors into his nation to verify that he did or did not have a renewed WMD program, what else were we to do but assume that the intel we had was correct? Especially as even captured members of the Ba'ath party and Iraqi military after Iraq surrendered were surprised that we did not find an active WMD program. It is theorized that Saddam circulated the false intel in order to keep his hostile neighbors and citizens in line. Notably Iran and the Kurds.

In addition, the cease fire agreement that ended the Gulf War had 22 sanctions placed on Iraq. Over the course of the 12 years, Iraq violated 19 of them. Any one of which should have constituted a renewal of hostilities on the side of the coalition. When Saddam refused the weapons inspections, that was the final straw for the US.

*On a side note, while we did not find any evidence of new WMD production, we did find many stockpiles of old WMDs that the UN had verified as having already been destroyed. We also found over 500 tonnes of yellow cake uranium which is used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons and radioactive dirty bombs. In addition, in the opening phases of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were MANY Iraqi convoys leaving Iraq and going into Syria. It was speculated that those convoys contained many of the WMDs in question. When Syria used chemical weapons against its own people in 2014, it was found that the chemical signature MATCHED some of those found in old caches found in Iraq during OIF exactly.

Various forms of chemical weapons were also used against US troops during OIF. Just saying they did exist, just not necessarily in the form or quantity that we had expected going into the invasion.

To bring out Luigi Mohammad, Lord of the Worms

OIL and only Oil Just so Congress could keep the Price of Gas Low at the Pumps in the USA

Iraq broke the ceasefire accords that were imposed upon them after Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Not to mention he was a threat to the stability of the entire region, with his campaigns against the Kurds and the Iranians resulting in hundreds of thousands killed. Iraq did have Chemical Weapons, they used them quite heavily to butcher the Kurds, like in the infamous Halabja Gas Attacks that killed nearly 5,000 people.

It's easy to write off the campaign as being under false pretenses, but if you believe the Iraqi Generals who defected and claimed Saddam removed his WMD stockpile shortly before the invasion to neighboring Syria, because Saddam did not want to actually use them against an attacking force and thus have the invasions justified, it would explain why WMDs were not located, and how Chemical Weapons have started popping up in Syria, especially during the conflict with ISIL who has used them against the Kurdish forces.

Congress believed there were WMD's in Iraq.

Because Saddam farted; he must pay the price.

Money.

To secure a UFO crash site slightly east of Tikrit. The Iraqi government refused to let UN inspectors examine it, so we had to secure it by force.

Money. To find out why something happens just look at who profits financially from it.

It was all part of a private feud between the Bush family and Saddam. Bush senior had supplied Saddam with weapons on the understanding that they could be used against Iran but not against Kuwait. Saddam then promptly annexed Kuwait and Bush had to send in troops to return it to the American preferred dictatorship. Bush senior stopped short of taking Baghdad and toppling Saddam, a task he left to junior.

A lot of people seem to forget that the U.S.A had been basically at War with Iraq since the 1990s. The gulf war and then the no fly zone's and sanctions that ensued all pointed to an eventual war with Iraq again due to the fact that Saddam was not complying with our terms.

Bush and party used the WMD's and the potential for terrorists to get ahold of said WMD's as a "reason" to invade Iraq and finally oust Saddam. Democrats and Republicans both went along with it knowing full well the scheme.

Also, it's like Hillary Clinton said: "We need to think of Iraq as a business opportunity", a LOT of corporations made a fortune on "rebuilding" Iraq.

It's simple really. Iraq did not obey the terms of agreement from the Gulf War, and we wanted to exploit Iraq's resources. It's why mostly all wars happen.

The fallout was of course the infiltration of Al Qaeda and now currently ISIS. The war with the Iraq military ended fairly quickly, what the politicians did not really expect was the following terrorist insurgency that would follow-- thus the Iraq War lasted years instead of months (like it should have)

The Afghanistan War is the War on Islamic Terror where we fought the Al Qaeda and Taliban, and now currently the Taliban and ISIS as well as Al Qaeda, The Iraq War was meant to be the War on Saddam. It just so happened that the Islamic Terrorists -- like our enemy Al Qaeda-- migrated over to Iraq during our invasion as a way to take the fight to us.

War is profit.

explain desert storm then?

iraq had wmd when desert storm happened

so that kind of makes your whole point meaningless

I don;t know maybe when the US pushed Iraq out of Kuwait he claimed victory ''you don;t see the American flag flying over Baghdad do you?''

to steak iraq's resources