I graduated from high school in 2005 and can remember being so confused about why the Bush administration would lie about WMDs, how would invading a country get the US oil and to what degree was finding Osama Bin Laden part of it. Even to today, it's difficult to figure out exactly what happened and what motivating factors were there.
I'm sure there's loads of partisan literature on the war, but I'd like to try to and avoid that as much as possible. I understand there's really no such thing as apolitical history, but I feel like enough time has passed that there's got to be some comprehensive text on events leading up to the war and the first few years.
What would you recommend I read?
For the Iraq war specifically, Thomas E Ricks has two great books about the war and what was going on in the Bush administration leading up to it. The first is called “Fiasco” and the second follow up, which covers ‘the surge’ is “The Gamble.”
You mentioned the part about “funding Bin Laden” which isn’t as related to Iraq as it is to Afghanistan. Funding Bin Laden also isn’t the most accurate way to phrase it, but the United States did indeed fund Afghan jihadists during the Cold War to drive out the Soviets, and that is essential the origin story of the war on terror, the rise of OBL, 9/11, and later ISIS. If you’re interested in that, read “Ghost Wars” and then “Directorate S” by Steve Coll. They’re long books, but extremely detailed, well written, and it will put all of the history you’re thinking about into context. The war in Afghanistan came first, so if you’re not familiar with the history I’d reccomend exploring that first before moving to Iraq.
After you’ve read about the Iraq war, you’ll probably be curious about ISIS, as it evolves from ‘Al-Qaeda in Iraq’ and is another consequence of the Iraq War. At that point, check out “Black Flags” by Joby Warrick. Good luck!
Edit: Missread “finding” for “funding” but still, the Afghan history will help with that. I don’t believe finding Bin Laden was really a primary goal of Iraq, since he had slipped into Pakistan and it’s unlikely Saddam would have provided shelter to a guy the US started a war to find. It was really about getting Saddam and his nonexistent WMDs. Whether the administration really believed these weapons existed is a matter of debate, but the decision making was certainly questionable.