There may be simpler ways, but the other ways would be more transparent. In other words, for years this was was basically unquestionable. Even now it's still a national security matter. Is it so hard to understand that Bush's good friends in the military industrial complex and the oil production groups egged Bush on through his previous hatred of Hussein and convinced him to convince America?
If you ask the right questions, you'll get the right answers, and for Bush, the right answer was "Iraq" and "2B dollars" and "six months"