Wormholes and Cheneyspeak

Okay, so a middle-of-the-road friend assured me yesterday that the reason we went to war with Iraq was to protect the Iraqi people from the chemical weapons Saddam so often used on them.
What??? She didn't mention that Bush promised in 2003 that Saddam was stockpiling WMDs. She didn't mention the "obvious" connections between Saddam and al Qeada that the vice president so adamantly affirmed in his overconfident Meet the Press Cheneyspeak. She was certain that this military action we're in was all about protecting the innocent people of Iraq from a ruthless tyrant.
Have I somehow slipped through a wormhole into an alternate universe where the UN security council debates of 2003 on sanctions and action against Iraq never occurred? Did I only dream of Colin Powell's satellite photos of mobile chemical weapons labs? Did Rummy's derision of "Old World Europe" never really happen?
Are we experiencing revisionist history even before it's history? Oh, benevolent God of History and keeper of timelines, please remind us what the ACTUAL series of events were before we rolled into Baghdad to kill civilians and sacrifice American soldiers.
And speaking of timelines... we should try to remember that Saddam hadn't used chemical weapons on his own people (or anybody else for that matter) since 1988, during the era of the divine one, Reagan, and Elder Bush. Unless that's a fact I'm remembering from the alternate universe on the other side of my wormhole.