no one wanted to occupy and be responsible for a Saddam-free Iraq. remember the Pottery Barn Rule?
Of course, but its also irrelevant. No one wanted to invade and occupy Afghanistan in the 1990s either for the same reason. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, circumstances made the invasion of both countries a necessity, despite the fact that it was extremely undesirable to do so because of the difficulty involved in rebuilding both countries afterwards.
that's why no one was willing to invade and occupy Iraq.
that's also the reason why no one was willing to invade and occupy Afghanistan. Its also irrelevant because changing circumstances made the invasion of each a necessity.
it's not like this was a new idea, or there was some new set of circumstances on the ground in 2002 (shockingly, just a year after 9-11).
There were a whole host of circumstances that had changed with the situation in Iraq from 1998 to 2002.
1. UN inspectors had been kicked out of the country and not allowed to return for that entire time period.
2. The best intelligences estimates and data from the United States and even countries like France and Germany showed that Saddam still had WMD. Had produced new WMD and ballistic missiles, and was estimated at only being 7 years away from being able to build a nuclear weapon. This is the NIE at the time as well the intelligence from other countries, not the alleged trumped up fantasies of "neocons". In 2002, the intelligence shows that Saddam is further along in these area's than in 1998.
3. This is probably the most important circumstance that had changed.
The erosion of sanctions and the weapons embargo. Saddam's black market smuggling only yielded him a few hundred million dollars in 1999. By 2002, this had increased to $5 Billion dollars! Sanctions and the weapons embargo were essentially gone by 2002. Syria was actively and openly ignoring all of the sanctions by 2002. Turkey and Iran although officially still on board with sanctions were letting millions of dollars of trade cross the borders every week. There were even violations with the Kuwait and Saudi borders with Iraq.
Then, China, a member of the UN Security Council that voted for sanctions and the weapons embargo, goes ahead and helps Saddam set up a new air defense system that can better target coalition aircraft. Russia and France had their own violations as well.
The only possible option instead of regime change for dealing with Saddam was containment through UN inspections that Saddam HAD TO FULLY cooperate with and a full proof sanctions and weapons embargo regime.
These primary elements of containment still existed in some form in 1998, they did not exist to any significant degree by 2002, except on paper!
The only way to prevent Saddam from obtaining substantially more wealth and weapons capabilties was either through sanctions or regime removal. With sanctions so eroded, and even members of the UN Security Council in violation of them, the only option left for dealing with Saddam became regime change. Containment, which was always a questionable policy to begin with, can't work at all without effective sanctions and a weapons embargo. Without it, the regime must be removed because it is the only option left to insure that the events of 1990 or a far greater disaster does not occur. As soon as sanctions eroded to a significant degree, any more time spent waiting to remove Saddam would be time that Saddam would use to rebuild his conventional and un-conventional military capabilities. Although actual WMD weapons were not found after the invasion, WMD production related facilities that violated the resolutions and were never shown to inspectors were found.
As time went by a stronger Saddam would increase the risk to the Persian Gulf as well as increasing the cost in casualties and money of removing him from power. Acting in 2003 to remove Saddam rather than later, saved lives, money, as well as insured the security of Persian Gulf energy reserves, vital to the global economy.