Our stated goal in late 2002 and early 2003 was to have Saddam Hussein comply with a very thorough WMD inspection regime to be carried out by the UN.  Diplomatic pressures having failed, we resorted to military coercion to attempt to persuade Saddam to comply with the inspections.  It is my opinion that the Administration and many in Congress believed that Saddam would take our threat of military action seriously and permit the inspections.  It is my opinion that we did not believe he would risk losing his regime over weapons inspections. As an additional carrot to hang at the end of the stick, we promised Saddam that if the inspections were allowed to be conducted as desired and no evidence of WMD were found or if Iraq came completely clean with any programs they had hidden away, we would proceed with the lifting of UN economic sanctions on Iraq.

The advantage of hindsight allows us to see more clearly now what was going on then.  It is clear that the sanctions on Iraq and the Oil For Food programs were clearly working to the benefit of Saddam Hussein and certain well-connected Europeans.  Saddam did not want the sanctions to end.  As long as the sanctions were in place, he had absolute control of all oil out of Iraq and all imports.  He could personally authorize and manipulate all trade in and out of Iraq.  If the sanctions were lifted and people were free to buy and sell goods outside of a government overseen program, the potential existed for business to be transacted outside of Saddam's personal oversight.  This would mean a potential loss of both control and money over a probably increasing amount of trade as time went on.  So we have a set of sanctions in place that Saddam really doesn't want to see lifted because it gives him absolute control over all Iraqi foreign trade.

In the meantime, France was heavily invested in selling the idea of an EU constitution to the people of Europe.  Chirac's vision was of a united Europe acting as a counter-balance to the United States in global affairs.  The notion that Europe should not be dictated to by the United States and should instead exert its own influence at the UN and in other world events was a major force in France's actions to torpedo any UN authorization for invasion of Iraq to force compliance with inspections.  That many French politicians, diplomats, and business people with high connections were also profiting from the existing sanction "scheme" added yet more pressure against the US plan to force inspections and then end the program once Iraq was either disarmed or found to already be disarmed of WMD.  While we were attempting to send the message that we would invade unless the inspections were done, the French were apparently communicating to Saddam that we would not act without UN approval and that France was going to prevent any such approval.  So Saddam believed he could defy the inspections because there would really be no US invasion as long as he kept the French happy.

So now we have a bad situation developing.  We did not at the time know (or at least I had not heard of any knowledge) that the Oil For Food program was as corrupt as it turned out to be.  We had no idea that Saddam was funneling money to French politicians and UN diplomats.  We have US forces deployed in Kuwait ready to invade.  These forces could not remain static forever.  Also, the weather was going to turn against us if we didn't act by early spring.  War is physically demanding and war in the 100+ degree heat of the Iraqi desert is not an appealing prospect.  We had given Saddam an ultimatum, France convinced Saddam it was toothless. I don't believe we really thought we would have to invade and therein lies the reason for the lack of enough planning for what happened after the defeat of the Iraqi army.

Had France been on board (even if they weren't in their heart, had they simply pretended to be) then Germany would have followed France.  Russia would have been alone as the only European Security Council member against.  While they could have vetoed any resolution of the Security Council, if faced with a united front from both Europe and the US (Russia notwithstanding) then Saddam would probably have given in to the inspections and there would have been no reason for the war.  Saddam could still be killing Shiites and Kurds, and his sons could still be raping the local chicks and torturing athletes.  Instead, France was signalling to Saddam that there would be no US action so he defied the inspections and we invaded anyway.

The blame for the US invasion of Iraq can be squarely placed in the lap of Jacques René Chirac.  By attempting to block it, he precipitated it.  Had he appeared to back it, it would probably not have been needed.  Our forces assembled in Kuwait with enough force to ensure the defeat of the Iraqi army and the Saddam regime.  They did so.  And so ends part 1.