"Fact is, Iraq was no threat to the United States, or even its neighbors. Saddam Hussein was fully contained, his government was a shambles, and his military infrastructure was completely eviscerated as a result of the first Gulf War and U.N. sanctions. "

Using your logic what were the reason why we were imposing sanctions?
Why are American tax payers paying billions per year to maintain sanctions and a No Fly Zone. Actually, the "Fact is" that Iraq was a threat, and we were taking steps to limit this threat.

As is becoming more obvious, the UN Oil for Food program was completely corrupt. As is also known the borders were completely porous. And without the UN inspector in Iraq, what did you actually have? The sanctions were basically a farce. A convenient excuse that Saddam could use to blame all Iraq problems on. And opportunity of the people in charge of the UN Food for Oil program to enrich themself.

So when Bush became President the situation in Iraq was no UN inspectors in Iraq, oil being pumped out of Iraq about a fast as it could be got out of the ground, and US having the responsibility of controlling ship transportation into Iraq, and flying over most of Iraq's airspace. This was costing Americans billions of dollars. Were we getting billions of dollars worth of security for this? Were we getting any real assurance that Iraq wasn't developing WMD? And what about the other provisions of the cease fire agreement? Was Kuwait ever going to get back the money it was owed?

I see the country of Iraq being restrained, but not it's leader, he was piling up billions of dollars in the bank. And he might made more money from smuggling operations than from oil exports. Did it matter whether he could not get things he wanted by ship, opposed to getting from bordering countries?
And what else was going on? Well the Kurds had basically formed their own country- not recognized, but made possible because the US was supporting them. This fact meant trouble further down the road, not only hostility with Iraq, and possible civil war killing hundreds of thousands, but also because the Kurds were also in Iran and in Turkey it had greater problems than merely some civil war in one country.
Now, you can simply kick this whole mess further down the road, but there is no real reason to hope it's going to get any better.

Now, finally if you want to change the situation with Iraq, you have the convince leaders in the region that it's a good plan. For example, do the leaders in Kuwait want to have say 50,000 American troops stationed in their country for the next few decades? How long is America going to want to fly airplanes from the Holy Land to do Operation Southern Watch?
Do we want to tell the leaders that we are going to pull out of the region in a few years? What can these leaders tell their people to counter the argument that the US is merely occupying their country?