So why DID Bush invade Iraq?

E. J. Dionne writes today:

there has been an entertaining chorus of claims that the charge is false but that everybody else did it -- other countries' intelligence services, assorted politicians in this country (especially Democrats). Lacking a defense, Bush's operatives have sought to construct a Potemkin universe of intelligence dupes.

In this blizzard of disinformation, though, the unique nature of Bush and his top advisers is conveniently overlooked. Everyone else in the world with the possible exception of Tony Blair recognizes the corollary to the now-accepted wisdom that Iraq possessed no unconventional weapons and posed no threat to the United States worthy of adjectives like grave, imminent, or even serious.

The corollary would be that knowing then what is known now, an essentially unilateral invasion of Iraq under conditions of haste and waste in March of 2003 would have been ill-advised in the extreme. Virtually alone in the world, Bush has proclaimed for months that he would have invaded Iraq even if he had known it posed no threat.

With all the reasons initially given by the Bush administration shown to be just so much hype to induce America to invade Iraq, and Bush essentially saying he knew that and would have invaded Iraq anyway, the question remains -- WHY?

Maybe someday he will write a memoir and explain his reasons. I won't suggest that he will or even can explain his rationale, of course. It will probably be something a third-grader could easily read.