> Iraq is an interesting example because we only found out it was false after the fact.
What? 100,000+ people marched in the street against it[0]. We knew the UK Government stole a student's essay for their "Dodgy Dossier" and tried to re-package it as intelligence before too[1].
We knew full well it was false before invasion. It didn't stop them.
I was part of the protests. It was widely reported in the media that WMDs weren't found, that Iraq was cooperating with the UN, and that the government's evidence was debunked.
The "anti-war" thing was just a big-tent message that most of those against the war could agree to (with each group having their own reason for being against it).
As someone who was against the war, I would say I didn’t know they didn’t have WMDs.
What I did think was that even if they did, there were other options on the table and that those had not been pursued to their full extent. Yes Saddam was playing 3-card Monty, but never the less we had time at our disposal we also didn’t pursue corroborating evidence and it all seemed like making up a reason for war rather than an actual casus belli. I mean, so what some known terrorists had passage? It’s not as if Saddam didn’t have his own insurrections to deal with.
There was no nuance. It was all let’s go! Most dissenters were more like, slow down, we’re not there yet, we haven’t exhausted all options yet.
The UN Weapons inspectors debunked the WMDs before troops even entered the country.
> In January 2003, United Nations weapons inspectors reported that they had found no indication that Iraq possessed nuclear weapons or an active program.
I don’t think that was conclusive (they didn’t have free access). Also, often times a first go at anything is typically faulty. It was; however, a reason to put things on hold and be more rigorous and investigate further.
I think mostly it was the establishment (Dems, Repubs, Globalists, etc. m) that wanted Saddam out, no matter what. Only old-style conservatives and leftists and other small constituencies dissented.
I’m not going to rehash the Iraq war timeline.. you’ve clearly missed my point. Just replace Iraq with gulf of Tonkin. That deception lasted a lot longer.
>[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_Iraq_War
These just seem to be anti-war protests. I'm not seeing anything that suggests they knew it was false, or that that was the reason for the protests