It’s a strange thing, there was a time I was against it simply because I am generally against war, but not for any specific reason, and this is a hard position to defend when folks are throwing quotes around.
It was when the 45 minute claim by Blair made big news that I had my hook to hang my coat on, that for me was when I was certain in a way that was quotable and didn’t rely just on my personal morals.
The 45 minute claim was always completely proposterous, Hussain had absolutely no way of delivering any weapon into Europe and it undermined every other claim, if our national leader was using such a specious and untrue argument then all else had to be a lie.
From that point I looked backwards to when I might have realised it sooner, the more I looked, the further backwards in time the signs went.
The earliest time that I could use to state that this war was a crock was when Rumsfeld started his reorganisation of US forces, and his claims that a far smaller military force could carry out the operation.
The Chiefs of staff had stated they needed around 400k troops to take and hold Iraq, as a minimum - but this was politically unacceptable as committments elsewhere meant the US could not raise this manpower and cover the troop rotations without having a draft.
When Rumsfeld then announced that it would take 140k troops, it seemed to me that he was preparing the ground for war as this was just about doable without a draft, and so it was politically acceptable, altough operationally unrealistic.
All those heads of staff must have known this was was a complete crock of shit from that time too, they knew what would be needed as a minimum, its a pity we didn’t see a few resignations from the upper tiers of the military, so in my view, their lack of personal convictions gives them plenty of blame, they put their careers before the interests of the US, and its service personnel.
Even if the US had invaded with 400k troops, I doubt that this would have been adequate, remember, this was a minimum, and I wonder if it ever was possible with far far more.
I think an interesting question for many posters is to ask themselves, **when should you have known the Iraq war was a mistake ? **
For me an outstanding moment is the resignation of Robin Cook, the British Foreign secretary, I think that we should all have known from that moment on, but plenty of us just let ourselves be carried along, not making much noise.
