9/11 or no 9/11, Bush was always going to invade Iraq. The terrorist attack just gave him the juice he needed to get Congress and the public on his side.

(It really doesn’t take much to convince one group of people to drop bombs on another. Convincing them to do something genuinely humane-that takes leadership!)

We know this. It’s a fact. Although I seem to be one of the few people who remember the administration floating Iraq trial balloons in the spring of 2001.

1. Paul O’Neil tells us in THE PRICE OF LOYALTY by Ron Suskind that Bush was already eying Iraq as soon as he took office.

2. A map of Iraq, divided by oil fields/supplies, was among the documentation that has been released from Dick Cheney’s secret energy policy meetings. (This was back on a Friday dump for the Saturday slow news cycle one weekend in 2003. Credit Bill Moyers for broadcasting the information that evening on NOW.)

You can pick your favorite pop-psychology reason or any combination for why Bush targeted Iraq:

To prove himself better than Daddy

To steal the oil

To rewrite the map of the Middle East

Hubris, simple greed or penis-related issues, it’s not a pretty sight.

I think most people voting for Bush had to know we’d be back in Iraq. It’s just like the “shock” over the Monica Lewinsky scandal with Clinton. There was plenty of concern about the “bimbo” factor from Clinton’s own campaign staff back in the 1992 Election Season.

Blaming Bush for invading Iraq is like blaming Clinton for extramarital affairs. It’s who these guys are.