Definitely inside job. I admit I haven't read much about the financial implications, but my convinction comes from the military and political developments. Immediately after 9/11, neo-cons like Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were calling for action against Iraq. This didn't work out at the time, as the obvious target for retaliation was Afghanistan. It took the neo-cons 18 months of bullying and blatant lies to convince the world of the need to remove Saddam. I wonder if anybody even remembers the efforts made by neo-cons to establish a link between Al-Qaeda and the Iraqi regime, that would justify an attack on Iraq?
Iraq was the first target and we all know what happened in the Middle East since 2003.