Why did the United States invade Iraq in 2003? It's incredible — in the literal sense of the term — but 20 years later we don't really know. All that news coverge, all the books, and still the reasons are opaque.
Times journalist Max Fisher suggests an answer. Many, many people in the Bush orbit wanted a war against Saddam, but for different reasons. So they settled on WMDs as a kind of common coin. From there momentum grew and grew.
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|We thought Saddam had Weapons of Mass destruction. or that was one reason.
@zleap @jayrosen_nyu Yes, but we didn't want to eliminate them; their existence would be great post hoc evidence showing we'd been right all along. Alas....