In 2003, the United States failed to convince the UN Security Council to pass a new resolution authorizing the use of force due to lack of evidence to find the non existant weapons of mass destruction. Despite being unable to get a new resolution authorizing force and citing section 3 of the thing passed by the U.S. Congress, which no one really cared about, President Bush asserted OBama type measures couldn't disarm Iraq of the weapons he alleged it to have (lying his ass off) and launched a second Gulf War, despite multiple dissenting opinions and questions of integrity (what integrity?) Later U.S.-led inspections agreed that Iraq had earlier either abandoned its WMD programs or hid them in a place no one would look (like the outhouse in back of Mohammed's Chinese take-out). President Bush later said that his biggest regrets of his presidency was the intelligence failure in Iraq, and not betting on Blue Devil to win in the 5th at Aqueduct. The senate Intelligence Committee found in 2008 that Bush's administration misrepresented the intelligence and the threat from Iraq. Bush launched a compaign to convince Americans the war was inevitable and necessary. Which was not true. What is necessary is your Cancun vacation
Some say Cherney was interested in Iraqui oil, seeing the removal of Saddam Hussein as an opportunity in this regard.
Back in 2003, an opinion piece in the NY Times openly accused the administration of manipulating intelligence about Iraq's non existent nuclear weapons program to justify military action.