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OK, so why then did Bush shift priorities away from Afghanistan, to Iraq, before the job was finished there?

The reasons for dealing with Iraq were adequately summarized in the reply you received from Yo-Yo, just upthread. I'll add just a little below.

Who provided most of the information about Saddam’s “vast” WMD arsenal - Israel.

Do you have a basis for that assertion, or are you just so Israel/Jew obsessed you ASSume it's the case? IOW, does it come from somewhere other than out your clymer?

I'm far from infallible. Maybe I missed something. But I followed the Iraq war debate reasonably closely, and the fact is I don't recall Israel ever chiming in or being cited. (Which in retrospect seems kind of odd. Although there are possible reasons that make sense. For one, opinions in the Israeli intelligence community may have been mixed. And if they had a differing view they probably wouldn't have wanted to gainsay Bush. Even more likely, they would have simply assumed that anything they offered would be dismissed, and so thought it better to stay out of the debate.)

As far as I am aware, most of the information came from American, French and British intelligence, although I'm not well versed in what agencies they may have drawn information from in return. Jordan? Turkey? In any case I don't recall ANY information being source to or through Israel.

Also, I don't recall anyone characterizing Saddam's potential arsenal as "vast". Again, do have an actual source for this, or are you just publicly abusing a dead horse? I mean, sorry to seem rude, but you put quotes around the word, which generally means someone actually said it. But possibly in your case it means something else. Like, "I pulled this out of my clymer."

Again, sorry for the tone. It's just irritating to have to correct this record yet again, and especially for a conservative!

Anyway, during the debate it was all along entirely clear, at least to me, notwithstanding this or that suggestive fact or bit of intelligence being touted here or there along the way, that the overwhelming problem is that we did not know the status of Saddam's WMD programs and capabilities. In the post 9-11 context, this lack of knowledge was intolerable, especially considering that Saddam had explicitly obligated himself to provide this information, but had repeatedly refused to do so.

It was also entirely clear, at least to me, that the main concern on the part of Bush and his advisers was not so much what usable remnants of Saddam's former WMD capabilities might have remained in place as of 2002 or 2003. (Most apparently thought some, but again, troublingly did not KNOW.) The primary concern was due to the fact that the sanctions regime imposed on Saddam was steadily deteriorating, and predictably would fail completely in the near future.

IOW, the fear, entirely rational in light of Saddam's stubborn refusal to fully disclose his WMD programs, was that, even if those programs were not currently active, they were being maintained such that they could be rapidly revived when sanctions were inevitably lifted.

IOW, Bush was thinking ahead, and taking advantage of a present, but then rapidly receding, window of opportunity to take action that would make us safer in the future.

And, yes, THAT kind of strategic thinking, IS INDEED very "neocon" in nature.

BTW, the kind of knee-jerk "blame the neocons" attitude you're displaying, irritates me not because I have a problem with disagreement, criticism and argument. Those things are essential. It's rather that neocons are so often blamed for things that are as much, if not more, the result of their prescriptions NOT having been followed, or having been adopted weakly or belatedly.

For instance, if we'd really been listening to the "neocons," there either wouldn't have been an Iraq War at all, or it would have gone far better.

It was largely "neocons," who argued back in '91 that we should remained longer in Iraq. For example, one of the men you named, Paul Wolfowitz, while not pressing, as some others did, for an advance on Baghdad, did argue that we should hold our occupied territory in Iraq until the anti-Saddam forces got their feet under them, and in order to prevent Saddam reconsolidating his power. Instead, Saddam was allowed to put down the uprising and restore control of Iraq under our noses.

Even that opportunity having been missed, it was neocons who, later in the 1990's, lobbied for and secured the passage of the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act. The intent of this measure was to support the development of a Free Iraqi government, initially outside Iraq, but then transferred to the "no-fly" zones, and then the creation of a Free Iraqi army there.

Unfortunately the State Department and the CIA, the agencies principally tasked with implementing the act, instead colluded in systematically undermining it. (BTW an utter, borderline treasonous, outrage, with tragic consequences, that the media and the intelligentsia, never exposed, and indeed often colluded with, possibly due to the same knee-jerk and unreflective "anti-neoconism" that you've apparently bought into.)

But what if the Iraq Liberation Act had been seriously implemented?

In the best case, it might have prevented the Iraq war entirely. It's not too difficult to imagine a viable Free Iraq government in the no-fly zones steadily siphoning away power from Saddam, to the point where he might have been successfully overthrown.

Even in the worst case, hindsight suggest the vast difference it would have made, in prosecuting the Iraq War, if we'd had significant numbers of native Iraqi forces participating in the liberation of their own country, and if there had been a viable Iraqi government in exile to which sovereignty could have been transferred almost immediately.

In short, the neocons for years were urging us to take actions that could have either prevented a war with Saddam, or at least have sensibly prepared for it. The war was as difficult as it was not because neocon prescriptions WERE followed, but rather because they were NOT followed, or because they were undermined by the foreign policy "realists" who thought they knew so much better, and remarkably, despite the evidence of reality, still think that.