Project for the New American Century....remember these guys?
Neo-cons like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowicz, Feith, Pearl, et al, all former PNAC "scholars" or affiliated with PNAC in some manner and all ended up in the Bush administration setting foreign policy.
At the core of PNAC foreign policy was the notion of US being the policemen of the world, promoting freedom and replacing tyrannical regimes with American-style democracy, with force if necessary.
The PNAC started calling for regime change in Iraq during the the Clinton years.
Then 9/11...and within days, the PNAC ratcheted up the call to invade Iraq and the former-PNACers now entrenched in the Bush WH (Feith and Pearl reporting to Cheney and Rumsfeld ) started dusting off the plans...they now had a justification that could be sold to the American people.
And of course, the invasion of Iraq was geo-political and not based on intel or harboring terrorists, or being the policemen of the world and promoting democracy.
If so, North Korea would have been a better target.. more oppressive of its people and a greater threat to the US and its own regional stability (but more formidable than Iraq) .....or even Mynmar, less democratic than Iraq.
These guys had a plan for Saddam the day they took office.
added:
What's left of the PNAC are now the ones leading the charge to bomb Iran.