Oh, and we sent in a very small number of troops; commensurate to the threat level.
There were no hostages in Iraq, and at one time Iraq was our friend. Saddam tried to expand into Kuwait, but GHWB put an end to that. Saddam did not appear to be expanding his nation, and certainly not in anyway that was a direct threat to the US.
You can try to twist the facts as much as you want, but even W. gave up and basically just started spouting the neocon line of spreading democracy.
Now the neocons are starting to declare Iraq a success story, but we'll see in the next few years how accurate their "mission accomplished" celebrations are.
You kinda forgot that the Iraqis were firing on our planes everyday, and that we were bombing them every other.