Um, I do believe that it was Iraq that was claiming they had WMD, and had been witnessed gassing the Kurds. Heck, Saddam was preventing the UN inspectors access to known chemical weapon plants, while threatening to attack other people (as a smoke screen to prevent Iran from invading, but it was a credible threat). The chemical weapons were even found and disposed of, but it of course makes a good sound bite to claim they never existed.
This was hardly the wrong country, you just conveniently forget what was happening at the time. Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11, it was a declared war, and was about Saddam threatening other countries and not allowing inspections.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
I assume this is the 12 year old war you meant, if you mean Afghanistan, than it is just as off base.