You are leaving out a bunch of history. Bush 1 needed to take care of Iraq, but he quit before it was done. We didn’t give him the chance and Clinton did nothing because of his peace dividend and other interests. It was copiously documented that Saddam supported World Trade Center 1, supported and celebrated 9-11, kept and hide proscribed materials. The UN weapons inspectors were finding almost something of everything when Saddam kicked them out in 1998.
Had we not deposed Saddam, it is my opinion that he would have had a nuclear bomb well before Iran and North Korea.
Everyone who thinks that falls into the same trap as the neocons. GHWB was done. He kicked the Iraqis out of Kuwait and destroyed the Iraqi army. The anything more a lot of people keep asking for is falling into the same trap of trying to fix the middle east, the rathole that GWB, Cheney and the neocons led us down.