McGentrix wrote:What were they warning about? It certainly wasn't that Saddam did not have any WMD's.
They were warning that the evidence the US brandished and Colin Powell eventually brought to the UN about how Saddam purportedly
did still have WMD, was unconvincing and inconclusive. That we didn't
know for sure whether he still had them, and thus should give the inspectors more time. Remember the German Foreign Minister turning to Rumsfeld, in public, at an international summit, and telling him, "I am not convinced"?
Well, it turns out they were right to be unconvinced.
McGentrix wrote:There also were no countries that did not have their own self-interest as motivation to opposing the war in Iraq.
No? Out of the 14 UN Security Council members at the time, only four had declared their support for the resolution the US was then still planning to bring to authorise war. Not just France, Germany, Russia, China and Syria were against; a coalition of remaining members that the US was still wooing turned against it too. Mexico, Angola, Chile and Pakistan instead came up with a compromise proposal that
also insisted on a further waiting time while the inspectors kept on inspecting. The American government instantly rejected it.
(But then again you know this already, because we went through exactly the same conversation, you and me,
back in January and before that,
in September 2003.)
What would you say was the self-interest of, say, Chile, Mexico or Angola in opposing the war?
Outside the SC, a country like Greece opposed the war too (to just pick a random one). So did Norway and Finland I believe. And Austria. And South-Africa. And ... well, stop me before I rattle off a list of European, Asian, Latin-American and African countries. And their self-interest would be?