What was that whole thing even about?

I wonder to this day what it it was all about--in the lead-up to the war, I'll tell you one thing I didn't really think: I didn't think there were any WMD's in Iraq, and when the invasion started ten years ago, I was morally certain of it. Because it felt sudden. Like, the clock was ticking, and if the UN inspectors (because yes, and I have had this conversation with people, Saddam Hussein did so let inspectors in) kept finding nothing, well, then, the rationale for the whole enterprise would start to melt away, wouldn't it? Which is why, when that smirking jackass joked about not finding WMD's a year later, it simply wasn't that funny.

It isn't any surprise to hear people being matter-of-fact about it having to do with oil, now. Of course it did. I don't think the contracts to rebuild the oilfields and all that (a high priority business) were too far away from the war-planning concerns, either. Maybe they supposed the rationale for the war would take care of itself, once the mission was accomplished.  Whatever that meant.

Looking at the Iraq war, it's hard not to get bogged down in facts, mostly in statistics. How many casualties. How much it cost. How many people protested it. You can look at certain pieces of the puzzle that made things fall apart for you--the debunking of the yellowcake story. The discovery of the abuses at Abu Ghraib.  Or just the obvious horror of it. (And of course, there are people for whom this war made and likely still makes sense. I do not and probably will not understand these people. I might be saner for not understanding them.)

But when I get down to why it unfolded the way it did, I still find myself looking at GWB with a weird curiosity. Saddam Hussein was, after all the guy who tried to kill his dad. Huh. How do you like that?