Opposition to the Iraq War
Many commentators have opined that popular opposition to war on Iraq has exceeded the movement against the Vietnam War in scale, even before the war has even been declared.
On October 26, 2002, A protest rally in Washington, DC to express their opposition to war against Iraq, with 40,000+ Americans in attendance, according to rally organizers. (However, most major media organizations and the US park police have stopped making official estimates about crowd sizes years ago, after lawsuits by the organizers of the "million man march".)
On January 16, 2002, protests were held worldwide in opposition to the war, including in Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Japan, Belgium, the Netherlands, Argentina, and the United States, where Americans attended a rally in Washington, DC. The U.S. Park Police, which oversees activities on the Mall, no longer provided estimates of crowd size, but said that protest organizers only had a permit for 30,000 demonstrators. According to rally organizers, 200,000+ Americans were in attendance. A large rally also took place in San Francisco.
When President of the United States George W. Bush toured Europe in June, 2002, tens of thousands of people protested his presence.
Some people say North Korea poses more of a threat, while at least Saddam is co-operating. Critics say the US is less interested in North Korea because the country has no oil. Kuwaiti government officials made a number of statements in early 2003 rebutting these views, pointing out that if the U.S. was interested in taking control of the Iraqi oil fields they wouldn't have left the country 10 years ago.
On January 18, 2003, a mass mobilization pulled together demonstrations against the war in cities around the world, including Tokyo, Moscow, Paris, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Cologne, Bonn, Goteborg, Florence, Oslo, Rotterdam, Istanbul, and Cairo. See Global protests against war on Iraq.
On January 25, 2003 an international group of volunteers left London and is heading for Baghdad to act as human shields, hoping to avert a war and protect the Iraqi people. The project's organizer is Kenneth O'Keefe, a former US Marine who served in the 1991 Gulf War but who renounced his citizenship afterwards. The convoy is travelling through Europe and Turkey by bus and is picking up like-minded people along the way. This first wave of volunteers is expected to arrive in Baghdad in the first half of February, numbering about 70. (See Human Shields) In March, many of the human shields began to return to their home countries because the Iraqi government actually wanted to use them as human shieilds. The human shields that fled the country told reporters that the Iraqi government wanted them to sit at locations that were likely to be bombed by US allies if a war was to take place.
On January 27, 2003, The International Study Team--an organization of academics, researchers, physicians, and child psychologists--published a report titled "The Impact of a New War on Iraqi Children". The report concluded that a "grave humanitarian" disaster could result from a war with Iraq, particularly affecting Iraq's children. (See Report: Death, disease await Iraqi children in the event of war)
On February 15, 2003, worldwide protests, the largest yet, drew millions of people opposed to the war. Over a million people marched in Rome, more that 750,000 people in London, more than 600,000 in Madrid, 300,000 in Berlin, as well as in Damascus, Paris, New York, Oslo, Stockholm, Brussels, Johannesburg, Montreal - more than 600 cities in all, worldwide. See Global protests against war on Iraq. Many commentators have opined that popular opposition to this war exceeds that against the Vietnam War.
The people of Australia are strongly opposed to joining a United States action against Iraq without explicit United Nations endorsement. The latest national poll suggests that 67% of Australians take this view (February 23), other polls agree to within a few percent.
A substantial majority of Australians are prepared to support military action in Iraq if it has explicit United Nations backing. Poll figures are more variable, ranging from 56% to 67% support.
Some have speculated that western European countries are against a war because of widespread European "anti-American" sentiment, some of it related to stances taken by the administration of George W. Bush on international issues, such as the global warming and environmental protection, and what was perceived before the September 11th attacks as a policy of isolationism practiced by the Bush administration, which alienated much of the world opinion. The scale of the breakdown in trust and respect between Europe and the United States was highlighted in a story published in the Observer newspaper on February 16 2003, in which it was claimed that Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defense Secretary, intended to pull US troops suddenly out of Germany, not for military reasons but as to undermine the German economy, which was already faltering, as 'punishment' for its refusal to support the United States. European leaders and the public did not baulk at the suggestion that the United States was willing to destabilize a major European economy out of spite, because that state had been unwilling to 'do as Washington said.' Instead such was Europe's attitude towards, and impression of, the Bush administration that it perceived such claims as entirely credible.
The scale of the change in attitudes in Europe over the approach is shown in the Republic of Ireland. In the aftermath of the destruction of the World Trade Center, Ireland in an unprecedented declared a full national day of mourning for the victims. The reaction was two-fold: horror at the deaths but also a strong degree of sympathy for the United States, whom Ireland saw as a friend, particularly after President Clinton's welcome interventions during the negotiation of the Good Friday Agreement. By February 2003, the public reaction to the Bush administration actions over Iraq had changed America's image utterly. Instead of being seen in a positive light, the United States under Bush was seen as a 'bully' determined to force the international community to accept its demand for a war against Iraq, and if necessary ignore the international community in the United Nations and go to war unilaterally. While the reaction wasn't reflecting 'anti-americanism', it was reflecting a strong 'anti-Bush administration' feeling. Hence an unprecedented 100,000 took part in an anti-war march in Dublin (the organisers had expected 20,000!) with demands being made that the United States be refused permission to use Shannon airport as a stop over point when flying their soldiers from the United States to countries bordering Iraq. Yet opinion polls show that the Irish would support a war if it had United Nations approval. What they would not support is a unilateral war declared in defiance of the UN by the Bus administration.
That 'anti-Bushism' was reflected in many European countries, most of whose leaders and peoples had never been impressed by the new American president, the manner of his election or the policies of his adminstration. Critics of the European reaction have speculated about whether some European states have strong economic ties to Iraq that are influencing their stands; the vast majority of European states, however, have little or no ties with Iraq.
Religious opposition
On September 13, 2002, US Catholic bishops signed a letter to President Bush stating that any "pre-emptive, unilateral use of military force to overthrow the government of Iraq" cannot currently be justified. They came to this position by evaluating whether an attack against Iraq would satisfy the criteria for a "just war", as defined by Catholic theology. [1]
The Vatican has also come out against war in Iraq. Archbishop Renato Martino, a former U.N. envoy and current prefect of the Council for Justice and Peace, told reporters last week that war against Iraq was a "preventative" war and constituted a "war of aggression", and thus did not constitute a "just war." The foreign minister, Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, expressed concerns that a war in Iraq would inflame anti-Christian feelings in the Islamic world. On February 8, 2003, Pope John Paul II said "we should never resign ourselves, almost as if war is inevitable." [2]
Both the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, and his successor, Rowan Williams, have spoken out forcefully against war with Iraq.
The World Council of Churches, which represents between 350 million and 450 million Christians from over 100 countries, published a statement in opposition to war with Iraq. The executive committee said, "War against Iraq would be immoral, unwise, and in breach of the principles of the United Nations Charter."