system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: The War in Iraq.

After reading all of the recent American Sniper reviews, I realized that I am really out of touch with what is going on in the middle east.
gpt
9/11 happened. The people who did it were based in Afghanistan. So we went in there and started hunting them down. 

The administration of the USA, realizing that war was in vogue, said that Iraq has WMDs, and would make future terrorism against the USA possible so they had to take  Iraq down a peg early. 

USA invades Iraq to get rid of the WMDs. 

It turns out Iraq had no WMDs *that posed a risk to the USA*. 

USA administration is embarassed at being caught in a bold-faced lie, or being tricked by bad intel. 

USA administration from that time and their political allies decide to reframe the war as a freedom fighting mission for Iraq. 

USA finds Saddaam Hussein, turns him over to the people who he dictated over for years, and the people hang him. 

USA puts in a government that they like and can be chummy with. 

Government says that democratic elections will be held. 

Elections put people into power that USA does not like. 

USA decides they need to stick around a bit longer and make sure everything moves smoothly to the new people in charge of Iraq. 

Throughout all of this, young men and women from around Iraq are fighting to get the American soldiers out of their homeland and to maintain their older way of life. Those people are labelled insurgents (because soldiers cannot be tortured). 

USA starts to realize that Iraq war had nothing to do with terrorism or nuclear weapons really and was started on bad intel or lies from administration. 

People who backed the war need something to make it look like the war was justified. 

"American Sniper" is made as a film to justify said war. 

Tl;Dr: George W. Bush started a war based on a lie or bad intel. Dick Cheney's company made tons of money. 

Edit: made nukes into WMD and the bit in *stars*