If previous policy is irrelevant, there is no excuse for the invasion. Saddam hasn't gassed anybody since we stopped making excuses on his behalf, hasn't invaded anybody in over a decade. The "reliable intelligence" has yet to lead our troops to any solid evidence of either a significant connection to any active terrorist group, or any WMD.

Yeah, he's a bad guy who we should never have installed in the first place. But if you think any of the reasons given had any influence on anybody in the White House other than the Press Secretary, well, you probably had to look up Iraq on a map when it invaded Kuwait, and never read the back-story. He hasn't done anything in the last couple of years that wasn't excused by a Republican administration in the 30 years before.