Yup. So Bush put America, her brave soldiers, and the world in harms way over a freaking family squabble.
I really do not like Bush.
And now basically we are going to war in Ukraine for the same reason, a family squabble.
Things look very different today because many of the gains that Bush/Cheney made in the region were dismantled by Obama/Biden.
We did not lose the war in either place, we lost the peace. We should have gone home immediately after the invasion and thrown the nation-building nonsense to the UN.
I suspect the decision to invade Iraq was Cheney's doing, and though colored by the neo-conservative 'white man's burden' globalism, it was a reasonable strategic maneuver designed to pressure on the Iranians. At the end of the Bush administration the Mullahs faced the prospect of geographic isolation, external military danger, economic pressure and a building popular revolt.
Say what you will about Cheney, popping that Shiite pimple would have quieted the situation in the Middle East.
But then came Obama.