Why would anyone have opposed the Iraq War with the evidence provided prior?

Question

By this i mean, that everyone thought the evidence was true, and that the Bush Administration gave Saddam about 8 months to disarm and let UN weapons inspectors in. When he finally let them in, Saddam gave the UN weapons inspectors limited access. Everyone that was opposed to the war prior, where they just idiots or knew things that the rest of the world did not know but did not tell anyone?

Answer 1

there was no "proof" of WMD's, just reasonable guesses, not a good reason to go in.

Answer 2

Saddam did let the UN inspectors have unlimited access. In fact, Hans Blix, head inspector, begged for more time which Bush denied him. Saddam even invited any US agency to come over and have a look if they knew where the WMDs were. We didn't take him up on it as Bush and the neo-cons were determined to invade Iraq for other reasons.

I was all for invading Afghanistan where the terrorists lived, but not Iraq who posed no threat to the US. They were not involved in 9/11 and didn't harbor terrorists like Saudi Arabia for instance.

Answer 3

Many who opposed the war were not convinced by the evidence and/or did not think that Iraq was a serious threat to the US.

Others knew that the neocons had been planning the invasion of Iraq for a long time, based on PNAC publications and doubted the Bush administration’s sincerity about the reasons for invading Iraq.

Shortly before the war, still others thought that the UN inspectors should have been allowed to finish their inspections because Saddam had been cooperative and the inspectors hadn’t found any WMDs and stated that they needed more time to finish.

Edit: If you’re really interested, you might want to read Barack Obama’s October 2002 speech against invading Iraq. He outlined some of the reasons to oppose the war.

Answer 4

First of all I opposed any war in Iraq from the beginning and I am not an idiot thank you very much. We invaded a sovereign country and overthrew it's leader. Whether or not Saddam Hussein was the most despicable person in the entire world is a moot point. There are many dictators/leaders in other countries doing similar if not worse things to their people and we did not invade them. The intelligence you are so quick to point out was taken at face value and King George the Dumb and Prince Cheney the Dick chose to ignore evidence to the contrary and proceeded with this invasion. Many thousands of people have lost their lives because of this catastrophic blunder of the United States.

Answer 5

It was bluffs and posturing on Saddam's part. That notion that Iraq had WMDs kept Iran from making a move on it again. They're not going to go to the US and say "You know what? We really don't have 'em but we say we do because otherwise the Iranians may try to overrun us again." Saddam held that bluff all the way until the bombs started hitting his houses and by then it was too late to stop the ball from rolling.

Answer 6

Well, actually, that's not entirely true and you ommitted some evidence to consider. I was against the war before it started, but now that we have it we should pursue the best course of exit (namely a graceful exit where we can claim victory). But I digress:

Some sources of intelligence, mostly foreign, indicated that Saddam was not a major threat to the world in any way shape or form. He lacked the weapons, and he was so beat down after the gulf war that the remaining money of the country was being used to keep the population alive.

Two UN weapons searches found nothing, and unlike usual, Saddam did not forbid them from searching anywhere. They were granted complete and unfettered access to anywhere in the country.

Just prior to the declaration of war, Saddam challenged Bush to a live televised debate. Saddam even gave Bush the option of setting all terms for the debate. As expected, Bush refused.

US intelligence was known to be not completely reliable, but this fact was ommitted when politicians cited it in public.

Answer 7

I opposed the lie-based invasion and stated the very reasons that have come true today. My conservative coworkers didn't care to listen. They heard Fox News, Cheney, and Bush. Nothing else mattered.

I explained how the oil would not pay for the war. I explained that the Taliban were occupiers of Afghanistan. Iraq did not have people occupying their nation and therefore would not react in the same manner as Afghans did. I told them that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11. I told them that Iraq was the counter weight to Iran. I told them that Bush should finish what he started in Afghanistan.

Answer 8

There were some who opposed on principle. I disagreed with them, but at least they were honest about it.

Some didn't believe the intelligence reports. Those who actually took the time to read the full NIE report in Congress tended to oppose it because the report was very inconclusive.

Most however, simply have changed their tune because the thing has gone sour on them. The intelligence was wrong. Oops. We know that now, unfortunately, we can't just step back in our time machine and fix it before it starts. We have to deal with things they way they are now.

Pho is incorrect. Most of the foreign intelligence agencies were saying the same thing ours was. That Saddam was develooping WMDs and he was prepared to use them or sell them to terrorists.

Answer 9

The mission post 9/11 was to capture Bin Laden and destroy Al Qaeda. They were more than a threat, they had carried out the greatest attack on American soil. While Saddam was what, playing games with inspectors?

We had Saddam just where needed him. What we didn't have was Al Qaeda's leader who was responsible for the attacks, not Saddam. Now Bin Laden is chillin in Pakistan and we are powerless to do anything about it, Am I the only one who is outraged?

Answer 10

I have postings on another forum during the lead up to the war that point out that Sadaam was a charlaton bilking his fellow billionaire middle-eastern potentates out of their money by making shows of attacks against Israel and other such 'shows of force' that allowed them to live vicariously through him. He was no threat to anyone but himself. The only biological weapons he had were purchased from us (with our aid money before the first Gulf War) or from Germany with our approval.

Up until the time he mistakenly invaded Kuwait (due to the incompetence of our Ambassdor at the time giving him a green light through miscommunication of intent), he was one of our best friends in the Middle East.

Answer 11

Perhaps they thought it was not our job to do the UN's dirty work. Also, anybody who analyzed the religious situation knew that Saddam was against hardcore Islamists and knew that Saddam and bin Laden were far from being on friendly terms.

In addition, I questioned the exit strategy and so did a good friend of mine who was a lt. col. and served in the first Iraq war.