Why did we invade Iraq?

To answer the question, it was to get the Weapons of Mass Destruction that we, in the west, allowed Saddam to develop.

In 2003 Iraq was invaded by the United States of America and allies that included the United Kingdom.  Saddam Hussein was overthrown and while the war was easily won (and I was surprised at how easily it was won), the peace that was meant to occur afterwards was lost. 

Now, after many years, the Chilcot has finally been published.  And the United Kingdom have appeared to take it as gospel.  But, I feel that the way it has been reported has been unfair.  When looking at the decision to invade Iraq, we can look at it in isolation, or we can look at it in the context of history around that time.  And I think that we should bear in mind events that occurred before the invasion.

First of all, during the Iran-Iraq war we helped Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (which had been armed by the USSR).  Then we turned a blind eye when he used chemical weapons against Iran.  And then when he used chemical weapons against Iraqi civilians (though being Kurds, he felt that they were the enemy) we continued to support him.

Saddam then invaded Kuwait, or as he saw it, the un-elected leaders of Kuwait were overthrown by a revolution, who then asked for Iraqi help.  And this threatened the oil that the west depended on then, and still continues to depend on.  The world had two options, to leave Iraq in control, or defend Kuwait and go to war.  Oil won, and the first gulf war occurred were we fought against one dictatorship to protect a monarchy.  To be fair, Kuwait now has elections, but it is still a monarchy.  The war was won, and won with relative ease by the west though the human cost in Iraq was different and was to get worse.

Sanctions were imposed on Iraq and efforts were made to ensure that Iraq no longer had the capability to use the chemical weapons that it had used in the past again.  But this affected the people of Iraq while Saddam did not seem to suffer.  We also encouraged the people of Iraq to revolt, and then did not support them when they did, allowing Saddam to massacre them.  But Saddam did not allow the weapon inspections that were part of the ceasefire agreement to take place.  He would agree, then change his mind.  And a report by a weapons inspector (who died later) stated that Saddam was hiding weapons, and while they could not be used, he would try to do so if given the chance.

So before the second war, we were faced with several options.
1 - continue the sanctions (and continue the harm to ordinary Iraqi's)
2 - lift the sanctions (and let Saddam get WMD's)
3 - invade (and we all know how that ended)

While in hindsight, we can say the invasion was a bad idea, it appeared to be the least worst of three terrible options at the time.

The west had seen what military intervention had done before.  In Kosovo by intervening, we had prevented a repeat of the horrors of Bosnia.  In Sierra Leone, intervention helped and avoided any chance of the horrors of Rwanda occurring there.  So I understand the desire to bring about the change that had happened elsewhere.

My concerns at the time, was the spin and propaganda being sold to us at the time.  I did not believe that Saddam posed a direct threat to us, but I did feel that he was someone who needed to be removed for the overall benefit of humanity.  At the time, I felt that we should show that we could bring democracy to Afghanistan (which we had not at the time) and also bring about a more equitable solution to the troubles in The Holy Land.  

So overall, due to the threat that Saddam posed, I felt that regime change was needed.  

If you disagree, please post why.  I do try to learn from others and if you feel I have missed out on points on this, please let me know.