Those warmongering "neocons" again huh? The Senate voted 99 to 0 and the House voted 406 to 7 in 1998 to use force against Iraq. Apparently not only are Republicans "neocons" but so are Democrats. At least in 1998.
Republicans wanted to take out Saddam in the first Gulf War, Republicans overwhelmingly support Bush's action in Iraq now. So why the use of the word "neocon?" Are you implying there is a cabal of "neocons" who are "neoconning" the entire Republican party to support their position?
Here's the neocon letter to President Clinton urging regime change in Iraq
Notice the names of the signators. Notice also that they thought the threat from Iraq was very significant back in '98 and advocated a very specific remedy - removal of Saddam Hussein.
Despite this I continue to believe that the Administration, and the neocons, have larger goals. I'm not saying they believed that Iraq and WMDs constituted no threat. Quite the contrary. The evidence is overwhelming that the last 3 Administrations worried about Iraq. I'm saying they chose to exagerate the specifics of the threat in order to sell their policy - which was to overturn Muslim culture - because that policy couldn't be sold directly. I think that is their policy because the neocons - and many others -have argued it consistently over a long period of time, because its obvious that many, many others in the Muslim world hate our guts and would do us harm if they could, and because the Muslim world has been failing for centuries and that failure has bred hatred, frustration, envy, misery, jealosy, poverty, you name it.