"I thought this before 9/11 and sure as hell felt that way afterwards without ANY persuasion from Bush. What Bush thinks about anything has very little importance to me except as something to react to as a voter."

This is important point. The "issue" about Saddam's regime predated Bush. The Question was what to do about it, not if we should do something about it. An importance aspect of the debate started when Bush senior, arranged a cease fire agreement, instead of completely routing & defeating the entire Iraqi army. Because of many factors- and the political will of the Arab countries in the coalition was no small part of this- the decision to get a cease fire agreement probably was correct. The main thing that makes this a bit "ify" is Saddam remaining in power and all the killings of his people that he did to maintain this position.
Also predating Bush was the European desire to end containment which was based on the Saddam unwillingness to comply with the cease fire agreement- basically some of Europe wanted to disregard the agreement and try to normalize relations.