I want to find a concise summary of justifications for invading Iraq (Vanity)

[Nomen Klatura]

I want to provide my spouse with a good, cocktail-party-length explanation for why we invaded Iraq. She wants to be better informed and more conversant, and while I can give her the 1/2 hour version, I need it distilled down to about 2 or 3 minutes. Otherwise, she will be lecturing her friends (which she won't do). Care to help?

To whatever the FR forum provides, I will add (because I never hear anyone else say it) that Hussein declared that he had extensive WMD after Desert Storm. He actually listed them. He later told the UN that he destroyed them, but we would not be allowed to inspect or see for ourselves. We would simply have to trust him. We refused to trust him, so we went in by force to check for ourselves. People seem to have forgotten that he made an extensive, troubling declaration. Nobody knows what Hussein truly had, or what he would do with them if he was left in power.

My spouse will use this info to pick-off some potential Obama votes, which she is in a position to do. Hopefully that's a good incentive for the forum to take my request seriously.

Thanks for any constructive help.

[ChessExpert]

I’ve bookmarked this. There are a lot of good resources. In addition to many excellent posts, there are links to additional material. Kudos to those who took the time to provide quality responses.

It’s clear to me that there were many reasons for war in Iraq. It’s a complex world so that should not be a surprise.

Also, people like Hitler, Tojo, Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and Saddam Hussein can give us a few reasons. If we operated on a hair trigger, one reason would be enough. But then we might make a mistake (Yugoslavia?). When the worst dictators are allowed to misbehave for years, sometimes decades, many reasons accumulate. I think that occurred here. Sometimes it can be a straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Genocide using WMDs, continuing WMD programs, violating the terms of a cease-fire by not cooperating with weapon inspectors, shooting at US planes, attempting the assassination of a US President, funding terrorists, providing a safe harbor for terrorists, involvement in the 1996 WTC attack, possible involvement in the September 11th attacks. I think it valid that the accumulation of reasons ends up deciding the case.