Hoping for Longevity

I'd like to live long enough to find out the real reason our troops are in Iraq. We as a nation were first told that Iraq under Hussein was an imminent threat, that there were stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, that there was an active and nearly complete nuclear program, and there were hints of links to 9-11. If we didn't hit him first, he'd use all his WMDs on us. After all these reasons proved to be false--or if not entirely false, grossly exaggerated--we have been told that we went there to bring "freedom and democracy" to the Iraqi people. The vote to authorize the use of force was given to end a perceived threat, not to try our hand at nation building. If the threat of phantom nukes hadn't been trumpeted so loudly, the authorization to use force wouldn't have been so easily obtained. I want to know, however many years it takes to come to light, why Bush and Co. had such a hard-on to topple Saddam's regime. Was it because the first Bush didn't finish the job? Did they truly believe that they could create by force a viable democracy friendly to the U. S. in the region? I know for sure that we weren't led into this conflict for the reasons they gave us at the start. I want to know why, really.