Not everyone bought into it and there were protests when we attacked. I’m not sure how widespread they were, but the protest in Chicago was reasonably large.
Ed: Oh, duh. Figures wikipedia would have it. Protests against the Iraq War - Wikipedia
Fair enough.
D’oh! I forgot he didn’t actually run until 2004… I was thinking he was already a US Senator when he gave the keynote address at the 2004 convention, but Google tells me I’m wrong.
Still, he had come into prominence protesting the war, which goes back well before his short stint as Senator. But you’re right to call me out for overstating his status. My bad.
Not everyone bought into the idea that it was right to go to war with Iraq, certainly. It’s literally the reason Obama subsequently became President.
I think there were fewer people saying that the WMDs definitely didn’t exist though. A lot of the protesters seemed to think that even if there were WMDs, we still shouldn’t invade. I recall parallels being drawn to the Soviet Union, which certainly had WMDs, and which we never invaded.
People saying the WMDs weren’t there existed, to be sure. But it wasn’t like the people who thought the WMDs would materialize were some sort of lunatic fringe. Saddam Hussein was in breach of multiple UN resolutions regarding the right of UN inspectors to review their biological and chemical weapons programs.
To be clear: Iraq did have WMDs in the past. They’d been used in the Iran-Iraq War and against Iraq’s own Kurdish population. I don’t think there’s any debate about that.
It currently seems as though they’d probably all been used or destroyed by the time we invaded in 2003. But in 2002 & 2003 they had failed to account for all of them and neither the US nor UK governments believed their (probably accurate) claims that the WMDs were already destroyed. This was in large part due to refusing to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors.
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Worth noting is that the Iraq invasion was largely the work of the US & UK… headed by Republican and Labour governments respectively.
The Labour platform is more closely aligned with the Democratic platform, and Tony Blair was certainly not thrilled that Bush won the 2000 election.
I think people were suspicious of wmd story, but didn’t really have a better source of information.
But yeah, protests were a mix of
-Folks who oppose most wars automatically because they are rotten (or turn out to be rotten).
-Folks opposed to us invading without a UN resolution.
-Folks who believed it was a response to 911, about oil, and/or an unnecessary continuation Bush Sr.'s war.
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Saddam Hussein signed his death warrant when he had the temerity to believe he should protect Iraqi interests against the oil price warfare and oil theft by Kuwait etal.
wikibit
On the 25th, Saddam met with April Glaspie, the US Ambassador to Iraq, in Baghdad. The Iraqi leader attacked American policy with regards to Kuwait and the UAE:
So what can it mean when America says it will now protect its friends? It can only mean prejudice against Iraq. This stance plus maneuvers and statements which have been made has encouraged the UAE and Kuwait to disregard Iraqi rights … If you use pressure, we will deploy pressure and force. We know that you can harm us although we do not threaten you. But we too can harm you. Everyone can cause harm according to their ability and their size. We cannot come all the way to you in the United States, but individual Arabs may reach you … We do not place America among the enemies. We place it where we want our friends to be and we try to be friends. But repeated American statements last year made it apparent that America did not regard us as friends.[57]
Glaspie replied:
I know you need funds. We understand that and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait … Frankly, we can only see that you have deployed massive troops in the south. Normally that would not be any of our business. But when this happens in the context of what you said on your national day, then when we read the details in the two letters of the Foreign Minister, then when we see the Iraqi point of view that the measures taken by the UAE and Kuwait is, in the final analysis, parallel to military aggression against Iraq, then it would be reasonable for me to be concerned.[57]
Saddam stated that he would attempt last-ditch negotiations with the Kuwaitis but Iraq “would not accept death.”[57]
Personal commentary: American’s pressuring OPEC for increased production and cheap oil has consequences (unintended or serendipitous?).
Yeah, I would agree with that.
All of that and GWB desire to get revenge for Saddam trying to assassinate GHWB.
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That Glaspie - Saddam conversation certainly had elements that Saddam may have interpreted as being given a green light to settle his dispute with Kuwait however he needed to: