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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