Not only did Saddam Hussein not order the inspectors' retreat, but Butler's decision to withdraw them was -- to say the least -- highly controversial. The Washington Post (12/17/98) reported that as Butler was drafting his report on Iraqi cooperation, U.S. officials were secretly consulting with him about how to frame his conclusions.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1750
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So, besides the oil, why was Bush so inclined to order the invasion of Iraq? Here’s a clue: Then-Governor Bush, in 1999, told his biographer, Mickey Herskowitz, "One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as commander in chief. My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade, if I have that much capital, I'm not going to waste it; I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed. And I'm going to have a successful presidency."
Essentially, Bush said that he would invade a country like Iraq, to get political capital, to get Republicans elected, to get his legislative agenda passed. And he simply did what he said he would, once given the golden opportunity that 9/11 provided.
According to Herskowitz, who has authored more than 30 books, many of them jointly written autobiographies of famous Americans in politics, sports and media (including that of Reagan adviser Michael Deaver), Bush and his advisers were sold on the idea that it was “difficult for a president to accomplish an electoral agenda without the record-high presidential approval numbers that always accompany successful if modest wars.”
http://www.russbaker.com/Guerrilla%20News%20Network%20-%20Bush.htm
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