The Iraqi invasion was not made up(!), tho’ most of the alleged at the time atrocities against Kuwaitis seem to have been.
That war was about oil, and Bush 1’s reluctance or inability to discuss the situation honestly with “the people”, so his admin brought up other “issues” instead, to buttress the argument.
Gulf War II was not quite so much about oil (although that was still a large factor), but again it was not discussed honestly in some very significant respects.
At some point soon they need to either:
--1) Tell the American people what all the fuss was about if there are other legitimate threats still out there, or
--2) Admit they over-reacted or used dodgy intelligence to bring us to the brink of war in the Middle East...once again.
About 5 months before the March 2003 Iraq war, I asked my son who was there throughout GW 1 how many troops we should have if we did invade. He said about 450,000. Instead we went in with under 300,000, and Gen Shinsecki (sp?) was fired for insisting we needed that many. If Bush/Cheney were going to send us in, they had to do it underprepared or else wait until after the summer heat which would have put the war too close to the next election for comfort. After a year there Bremmer (sp?) said we should have had 1/2 million. Bush 2’s stated reason was, “He (Saddam) tried to kill my Daddy.” Cheney wanted to set up Halliburton to make big money. Remember the lousy food scandal. At the time I remember reading an article that Halliburton had cut their lobbying money by 2/3ds after he became vice president. Why spend advertising money when the VP is in your pocket? I think at the time Cheney had $23million in Halliburton stock.