"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. "It was on his mind. He said to me: 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He said, 'If I have a chance to invade... if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency."
But he had Afganistan, why Iraq?
Here's why . . .
Herskowitz rings true to me for Bush. But he had his little war for political capital - Afganistan. If he had gone in seached the place from top to bottom and came back with Osama's head. He would have had more political capital that even he would know what to do with. So why Iraq?
I think that Iraq made the "perfect storm" of various conservative interests. I think you're omitting a few key players. Cheney wanted to show the world that we could go out and kick some ass world opinion be damned (nearly every nation supported Afganistan). Rumsfeld wanted to show you didn't need a big army to win a war (a lot of other nations were involved in Afganistan, he had more troops than he knew what to do with). The corporate interests were salivating at the oil and rebuilding contracts (Afganistan didn't have a whole lot to rebuild). Rove and the domestic political operatives wanted something to tar the Democrats with (Afganistan too bipartisan). The Heritage Foundation wanted to create some Rand-esque free market/corporate paradise to prove their theories (not enough existing infrastructure in Afganistan)
Enter the PNAC who had been working on Iraq War II for years with a 'perfect plan'. All the interests above jumped on board and worked to lobby Bush. Bush meanwhile had no love for Saddam (I wouldn't go so far as to call it a vendetta, but close). Here were all these smart, loyal people telling him how easy the whole thing was going to be - Chalibi in charge, oil paying for rebuilding, rose petals and cheers and statues of Bush erected Bagdad, six months tops.
And Bush thought, wow here is a chance to do some good and gain political capital. I'd be a fool not to jump at it - now how do we get everyone else on board? And then everyone settled on WMDs and 9/11.
Unfortunatly PNACs rosy plans turned out to be less thought out than a food order at McDonalds. Even wrose there was not a single WMD in the whole place. That would have at least provided some face-saving in that they would say "well at least there are no more WMDs in Iraq>" if said rose pettal failed to appear. Everyone above jumped on board because the PNAC plan was assumed to be reality based. Now that this premise is shown to be invalid, the only thing to fall back on is "democracy" and no one can be against a war for democracy, right? So that became the selling point to keep the public on board until the situation was stabilized, then Heritage et al could go to work.
But, of course, democracy can only come from within, it can't be advanced at the point of a gun, as Vietnam showed. Alas it seems that BushCo has forgotten that lesson.
So anyway after it was discovered that this wasn't going to be a short war all the interests suddenly were not there anymore. With the exception of Cheney and Rumfeld, all of the above interests depend on a stable Iraq. It was assumed by PNAC that the all Iraqis would tolerate invasion. But that is not the case. Now we're stuck and wondering exactly why we're there.
As for Cheney, he shown that the US can go out and kick ass without world opinion on our side. He just hasn't shown that it can be done successfully. I think that that is why he is still the biggest cheerleader, the first to shout "last throes" he still has money on the table there. Oh it helps that he is totally delusional.
Rumsfeld, despite all his faults, seems to realize that he was wrong on this. Everyone may flame me for this, but Rumsfeld seems to recognize that he can be wrong on occasion (witness his offer of resignation after Abu Ghrab, assuming it is true). That's why he isn't out cheerleading the occupation anymore. He knows it was wrong to go in with too few troops and that Powell Doctrine still controls. It does not forgive anything I only offer it as an explanation as to why we haven't heard too much from him in a while. He's laying low, hoping to salvage some of his reputation (not bloody likely).
The rest can simply walk away with their interests intact muttering "if only Bush had stabilized Iraq, oh we would have shown them."
Oh, except Halliburton, of course - they get paid win or lose.