Bullpucky. Regime change and regional transformation are part of the picture. Non-compliance with terms of surrender and associated U.N. resolutions was also a fact (and remains a legal justification for the war) even if Saddam did give away or destroy his WMDs.
Even thoough the point about Saudi Arabia was a distortion of Wolfowitz, it still bears some merit, particularly in the larger context of the "containment" of Iraq. Did we really want to leave American forces in the Kingdom of Terror for another 12 years? How many more barracks bombing could be expected in that time? Did we really want to continue spending tens of billions of dollars each and every year on "containing" Saddam for 12 more years? Did we really want to leave Saddam there crowing about he had defied the Great Satan?
Finally, even if Saddam had destroyed his WMD's, he didn't destroy the programs that created them. Our only choice would, then, have been to continue a nervous containment, uncertain (in the inevitable deficiencies of intelligence data) if it were successful, until a WMD attack actually occured.
No. Ask 1000 people on the street why we went to war with Iraq, and what answer do you think you'll get? Go check out some of the news stories leading up to and during the early part of the war. As my moderate friends started pointing out after no WMD's were used, the stated objectives started changing after the war was initated. Have you also forgotten the speeches at the UN about WMD's being the reason?
You make an excellent point that I have been saying for quite a while. That is, inspections would be a thing that had to go on forever. And since we cannot be perfect, WMD's would be developed and used despite those inspections. What we did was the only thing we could. The war had a finality to it that weapons inspections would never have.