Talk:Governments' pre-war positions on invasion of Iraq

Untitled (1)

This text was originally located at Support and opposition for the U.S. plan to invade Iraq. A complete history for the text may be found there. - Montréalais 05:03 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)

I have a question. Why is there a page on Wikipedia dedicated to the goverments of the world's stance on the invasion of Iraq, but not one dedicated to the popular opinion of various countries throughout the world? I would write one myself, but I'm having a hard time locating resources. Just throwing a thought out.

refer to Support and opposition for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. --Jia ng

Jtdirl, I don't think that the phrasing of the paragraph you added on Irish opinion is appropriate. I am mentioning this here because I first want to discuss it before being seen as someone who will simply hide facts that he doesn't like. You added:

A scale of the change in attitudes in Europe over the approach is shown in Ireland. In the aftermath of the destruction of the World Trade Center, Ireland declared a full national day of mourning for the victims. By February 2003, the public reaction to the Bush administration actions over Iraq was such that 100,000 took part in an anti-war march in Dublin, 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.

I do not see how the two different events you have mentioned here (reaction to 9/11 terrorism; reaction to declaration of intent to attack Iraq) represent a shift in public opinion. Rather, I see them as being founded on the same basic principle (killing people is bad). I would quite like to remove the mentions of the 9/11 terrorism here, as it simply does not belong here, and it is inherently POV to say that the two reactions constitute a shift. WDYT? --snoyes 23:03 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)

I disagree, and so do most commentators who wrote in the issue. The reaction wasn't based simply on horror of deaths; mass deaths occur all the time in many states. It was based on an empathy with America, a feeling of sympathy for a country that Ireland had a long association with, from the emigration of the nineteenth century to Bill Clinton's involvement in the peace process. It was not just mass deaths, it was mass deaths in a friend of ours.

The reaction over Iraq is based to a significant extent on an image of the US that is different to 9/11. At 9/11, the US had the sympathy of Ireland. Now, the US is seen as bullyboy trying to intimidate the world into agreeing to allow it wage war on Iraq. There is a similar reaction to the decision of the EU commission to allow the US government access to passenger details of people travelling to the US, such as their credit card nos, etc. It is again seen as bullyboy America forcing Europe to give it access to information strictly protected under Irish and European data protection regulations but which in the US has much less protection, the gut feeling being 'do we trust Bush and his administration with our sensitive data. The answer is 'no', hence the outcry.

The issue wasn't simply revulsion at deaths, it was that whereas after 9/11 the US was seen as a friend who had suffered a loss, now it is seen as a bully trying to get its own way. And polls show that if the war had UN sanction, Ireland would support it, even though it would cause mass casualties. The issue boils down to the changing image of the US,. simply death numbers. JTD 23:24 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)

This is a non-ideal way to organise things, seperating out "support" and "opposition". It would be better to organise things by country, rather than artificially polarising the issue. Martin

I agree. JTD 00:31 Feb 23, 2003 (UTC)

Its a good point. While Britain might seem a good example of a nation that supports the US and France is a good example of one that doesn't, its hardly clear cut. Susan Mason

Without deleteing anything, I have moved some of what was at Worldwide government positions on war on Iraq to Popular opposition to war on Iraq. This page should focus on the positions of the governments themselves, while we have other pages dedicated to public opinion and protests. As a next step, it would be nice if we could start to graduate government positions onto some sort of spectrum like:

Opposes Iraq War absolutely
Supports Iraq War with UN approval, opposes otherwise
Supports Iraq War absolutely

I see your logic, 128.193.88.18, but it is grossly unfair to Australians to imply that Australia supports the US position - which is what the entry now does. The current government's policy is opposed by 70% of Australians, and may well not last much longer. Tannin

What would you suggest would be the best way to handle it? We've got other pages with tons of public opinion stuff, and I think it would be useful to have this page get directly to the status of government positions. What if we limited ourselves to no more than one line regarding public opinion per country?

Yes. A good way to handle it. I'll add that one line in a moment. Tannin

I qualified the mention of the UK by describing it as the UK government for polls suggest that the war, particularly without a second UN resolution, would barely have the support of one in four voters. Also mentioned Clare Short's attack on Blair and Robin Cook's hint that he will resign. STÓD/ÉÍRE 11:07 Mar 14, 2003 (UTC)

Moved from article for irrelevance

A U.S. Army psychological warfare group is operating in the region. United States and British aircraft have dropped leaflets on Iraqi cities and military positions, warning Iraqi soldiers not to fire on Coalition aircraft in the no-fly zone and not to support Saddam Hussein. In addition, EC-130 Commando Solo aircraft, equipped with mediumwave, shortwave and FM transmitters, have been broadcasting directly to the Iraqi people.

This would be best in the US invasion of Iraq article, except it's outdated - I remember this report from a week or so before the invasion started. Maybe it could be rolled into Preparations for 2003 invasion of Iraq somehow. --AW

Moved from article for irrelevance (the support paragraph should talk about support, and the contra paragraph should talk about contra)

However, as of late January, the United States had asked 53 countries to join it in a military campaign against Iraq, and by March, over 40 countries had agreed to do so, with only a few agreeing to provide troops. [1] (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40191-2003Jan24.html)

I'd like add something along the following lines:

Many in the United States and Britain have predicted that once it became clear that the Baath regime was certain to fall, many who initially opposed the action would begin to support it. Indeed, both Germany and France have publicly adopted a pragmatic approach in light of possible humanitarian crises in Iraq and the prospect of eventual United Nations involvement in the rebuilding of Iraq. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer was quoted on April 2nd 2003 as saying We hope the regime will collapse as soon as possible and we'll have no further loss of life — civilians or soldiers. Chadloder 03:49 Apr 3, 2003 (UTC)

Soon, shall we make a new article called "Worldwide government positions on war on Syria?" Kingturtle 01:52 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)

Sure, as long as we can attribute the sources. -º¡º

why is this article divided in three blocs, one "for", one "against" and one "oriental" ? Can't middle orient countries be moved in the appropriate blocs ? User:anthere

European position without a word about Europe's largest nation measured in population?

I realize this whole Iraq thing is a hot topic and probably many US citizens commit to the creation of that page but I think it hardly resembles the truth about support from Europe concerning the war.

How can you summarize the position of all kind of European nations when even Germany isn't mentioned with one single word? Germany is Europe's largest country with estimated 82 million inhabitants. Together with France, Germany represents the largest part of the European population. Ignoring the fact that those two governments who objected against the war with strong words while representing the largest part of Europeans is not the way historical facts should be archived in an encyclopedia. Summing up tiny nations with less than 30 million inhabitants in favour of the war is really ridiculous. Then you should have included countries like Belgium or Luxembourg too, which were both against the war.

When it comes to questions about Iraq, I doubt there can be any objective statement by US citizens since their vision on events is heavily clouded by one-sided press coverage, government propaganda and full-blown patriotism which eradicates any motivation or legislation to critize the government in its war plans.

Concerning the support from Europe it would have been interesting to mention that there have been pre-war studies revealing that more than 70% of the European population were against the war, including countries like the UK, Spain, Poland and Italy. Millions of people on the streets demonstrating against their governments spoke a clear language. I can't find any of this on this page. It is totally twisted and worthless in terms of objective archivation of historical facts.

cheers, Tobias

I wholeheatedly aggree with you Tobias. It is not that we havenot tried ;-) I did, and others did as well, but all these pages changed so often, that it was difficult to keep track of wild deletions and fact twisting. You can also find a lot of anti-europeanism in many talk pages. Ultimately, this was too heavy to carry, and I just admitted all these pages were biased, period. At least, I prefer strongly biaised than just little biaised, so that is even more obvious. Now, dust has settled, a couple of people are gone, maybe is it time that someone make something decent. I hope you will. I support you.

When did Scott Ritter become a worldwide dignitary? Adam

Another rename

From Cleanup:

Worldwide government positions on war on Iraq ... Its NPoV & less ambiguous title is Governments' pre-war positions on invasion of Iraq --Jerzy

The logic of this name change:

"Worldwide" sounds like a claim of covering every nation, which is far-fetched.
"Worldwide government" will catch some searches for concepts of eliminating national soverignty
Had to go to article to discover it's not up to date
PoV title:
- Bush PoV: war on Saddam
- Pacifist PoV: war on Iraq as whole including its civilians
- NPoV: Invasion of the territory of Iraq, a fact, w/o saying which set of consequences should be the focus

--Jerzy 05:00, 2004 Jan 27 (UTC)

Untitled

--- Several British ministers did resign over the war, no question about this. Václav Klaus opposed the war, check it. "Evidence" given to the Security Council was not only claimed to be "insufficient" but "not authentic", and in one case even forged, official UN statement. Why were Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Greece, Austria, Liechtenstein, and Serbia left out? And the African Union, the Arab League, New Zealand? Is this so uncomfortable?

Former mistitled section In the Middle East

The section includes for some reason a sub section "Vatican City".

The relevant material in this section has been relocated appropriately within the overall Pro/Con/Neutral scheme, but left in the following for context. Others may want some of it for other articles. --Jerzy (t) 08:38, 2004 Mar 9 (UTC)

(previously untitled intro subsection)

The Arab League condemned any potential invasion.

A number of Iraqi opposition groups have shown support for the potential U.S. led invasion. Ahmad Chalabi, of the Iraqi National Congress told a Turkish news agency that they "do not see an operation as a war between Iraq and the United States. This will be a war to liberate Iraq. The opposition will play a great role."

There is also supposedly some support for a possible invasion inside the country of Iraq itself. In late 2002, The US military announced that it had been receiving emails from members of the Iraqi military that, in their words, were "very encouraging". Saddam Hussein has reportedly made an attempt to cut off email communication between the US and the Iraqi army. In early 2003, NBC news anchorman Tom Brokaw interviewed a number of Iraqi citizens. On camera, the citizens proclaimed that they would fight to the end against the American invaders. Off camera however, Brokaw said many of the citizens said that the Americans were "very welcome".

The U.S. Army has reportedly received email from some of the Iraqi soldiers, which it considers to be "very encouraging". In March of 2003, Defence Secretary Rumsfeld confirmed reports that the U.S. Government was in communication with a large portion of the Iraqi military.

The governments of countries such as Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia have shown their support by allowing the U.S. to use their air strips and military bases, however, the level of public support in those countries of military action remains to be seen.

Turkey

Turkey was showing reservations, fearing that a power vacuum after Saddam's defeat will give rise to a Kurdish state. Turkey initially agreed to allow U.S. use of the air base at Incirlik, and to allow the U.S. to investigate possible use of airports at Gaziantep, Malatya, and Diyabakir, as well as the seaports of Antalya and Mersin.

In December 2002, Turkey moved approximately 15,000 soldiers to the border with Iraq. The Turkish General Staff stated that this move was in light of recent developments and did not indicate an attack was imminent. In January 2003, the Turkish foreign minister, Yasar Yakis, said he was examining documents from the time of the Ottoman Empire to determine whether Turkey had a claim to the oil fields around the northern Iraqi cities of Mosul and Kirkuk.

In late January 2003, Turkey invited at least five other regional countries to a "'last-chance' meeting to avert a US-led war against Iraq."
The group urged neighboring Iraq to continue cooperating with the UN inspections, and agreed that "military strikes on Iraq might further destabilize the Middle East region." [2] (http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2003/01/24012003170340.asp) Also in attendance were Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.

In the end, Turkey did not grant access to its land and harbours as asked for by U.S. officials.

Jordan

Jordan is a US ally in the area. Prior to UN sanctions being placed on Iraq, all oil in Jordan was supplied at very low rates from Iraq. When shipments ended the economy suffered terribly, and today the Jordanian economy is completely dependent on US supplies and economic aid. The government is attempting to follow a policy of neutrality, but is under increasing pressure by the public to refuse to allow US basing there. In late January, Jordan announced that it would most likely allow US troops to operate out of the country.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is in a similar situation, although they are not as dependent on the US economically. Their public remains dead set against US action, regardless of a UN mandate. The government has repeatedly attempted to find a diplomatic solution, going so far as to suggest that Saddam should go into voluntary exile.

Kuwait

Perhaps the only local ally supporting US action is Kuwait, whose hostility towards Iraq stems from the events surrounding the Gulf War. The public appears to consider Saddam to be as much of a threat today as in the past, and are particularly interested in attempts to repatriate many Kuwaiti citizens who disappeared during the Gulf War, and may be languishing in Iraqi jails to this day. However, even in Kuwait, there is increasing hostility towards the United States. [3] (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24537-2003Jan21.html)

Vatican City

The Roman Catholic Church took a firm stance against the U.S. plan to invade Iraq.

Pope John Paul II's Peace Minister, Pío Cardinal Laghi, was sent by the Church to talk with George W. Bush to express opposition to the war on Iraq. The Catholic Church says that it is up to the United Nations to solve the international conflict through diplomacy.

This war, and indeed most modern wars, do not satisfy the just war requirements set by St. Thomas Aquinas and other theologians. The method of total war, sometimes called terrorism (i.e. any non accidental attacks on non combatants, or civilian infrastructure), used in most modern wars since the Civil War and which were used in Iraq, are not permitted. The Church was also worried of the fate of the Chaldean Catholics of Iraq, that they might see the same destruction as happened to the Churches and Monastaries after the war in Kosovo.

The person in charge for the Relations with the States, Archbishop Jean Louis Tauran, said that only the UN can decide on a military attack against Iraq, because a unilateral war would be a crime against peace and a crime against international law.

The Secretary of State of the Vatican indicated that only the United Nations Security Council had the power to approve an attack in self-defense, and only in case of a previous aggression. His opinion was this was not the case and that an unilateral aggression would be a crime against peace and a violation of the Geneva Convention.

End of Former mistitled section In the Middle East

Anything between this sentence and the next heading is actually miscellaneous. --Jerzy (t) 08:37, 2004 Mar 9 (UTC)

re: polish support

It was speculated that elites in these countries still feel obliged to the U.S. for helping them to gain power after the transition period when the Soviet Union collapsed.

That's completly absurd. Poland is currently ruled by the very same communists the US helped overthrow (Confer Politics of Poland, Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej and Leszek Miller). A possible explanation could be trying to balance French and German influence with the comming entry into the European Union (Cf. treaty of nice and european constitution). Also the polish embasssy in Baghdad represented american interests during the interwar period so it was probably more natural for us to get engade.

elites supported the war, not the people how do you define elites and the people, before the invasion public opinion polls showed around 20% strongly against the war, 40% not supporting unilateral action by the US, 30% supporting and 10% undecided (on the other hand 63% were against sending sending polish forces and only 20% for). The support has since grown and is now about evenly spread 50-50. (most of the info from tv news and newspapers but you can check the last one here: [4] (http://serwisy.gazeta.pl/swiat/1,43724,1909022.html) and here [5] (http://info.onet.pl/889200,12,item.html)(the frame on the left starting with sonda, it's in polish, but comes out okay after an automatic translation, maybe someone can find and post more and in english). Most of those supporting the war are factory workers, most against are peasants.

I am sorry but I doubt your information: Polls find Europeans oppose Iraq war http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2747175.stm There was a debate between Eastern European intellectuals in the Newspaper "Liberation" about the question why Eastern European leaders supported the war against the will of the population. While people like Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel supported the war, new leader Vaclav Klaus opposes it.

the map

there are some concerns about the map. i have removed it until the problems are hashed out. see Image talk:750px-Country positions on iraq war.jpg for the discussion. Kingturtle 06:04, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

ok, thanks. Get-back-world-respect 17:37, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

China

The PRC was neutral about the war in Iraq. The type of statements that the Foreign Ministry made were standard boilerplate and very mild. It's also pretty clear that the PRC would have abstained had any vote on Iraq come up.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,886777,00.html http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/021203eda.cfm http://www.drumbeat.mlaterz.net/Jan%20Feb%202003/US%20doubts%20Russia%20China%20will%20veto%20Iraq%20resolution%20022603a.htm http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/s773044.htm

Roadrunner 18:31, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

From the Guardian article you quoted: "China Current position: Insists inspectors should be given more time." From the abc site: "China's leaders have made it clear they're opposed to a US-led war on Iraq and have repeatedly called for a diplomatic and political solution brokered through the United Nations." Yes, they likely would have abstained had any vote on Iraq come up. But no vote came up, and in a joint statement with France and Russia China had declared after the previous resolution that another resolution was necessary for a war to be legal. The Chinese government criticized the war when it started. Get-back-world-respect 20:10, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

NPOV dispute

I left a query on the talk page of User:Mrbrown as they have not suggested what their objections to the article are - or indeed if it is only to specific sections.

I've left the message on the page - presumably if a concern exists, in the huge user-space of wikipedia, probably a number share this concern (maybe not of course!)

Any suggestions as to sections that are too POV? See the above talk section if you have problems with the page name - it was chosen as a neutral, factual tag (better than War on Iraq, or War on Saddam).

Zoney 10:59, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

The original title was Worldwide government positions on war on Iraq, and since most pages still link to that title it should be restored, given this seems to be what authors of other articles are interested in. Get-back-world-respect 11:22, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

It's important to have "pre-war" in the title. The current positions of various governments is discussed in U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, not here. Also, I don't agree that the use of a particular title in the links on many other pages is good evidence that it's what other authors are most interested in: they probably just used the name that was the current title of this article at the time they were writing, and if the title had been what it is now, they would have linked to the current title instead.

Since the current title more accurately reflects the contents of this article than the old title does, a more reasonable solution might be to go to the other pages and update the names of their links to point either here or to the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq page (depending what each link is actually talking about). Neow 21:24, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

I had the impression that the title was changed because some editors did not want to see here that some countries have changed their attitude towards the war. From reading this article one cannot see that a lot of countries became critical about the war when it turned out that there were neither weapons of mass destruction nor links between Iraq and Al Quaida and when they saw the US military in some cases ignored the interests of its allies - the latter was cited as a reason why Spanish troops left so fast. They argued that they and the Polish were not prepared for the offensive US strategy against insurgents. For a historic summary of government positions there is already The UN Security Council and the Iraq war. Critical positions that developed after the war had started are only mentioned at U.S.-led occupation of Iraq in cases where troops retreat. Get-back-world-respect 00:03, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

I hadn't realized that the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq article only describes the positions of members/former members of the coalition.

I guess I see it as hard enough to summarize the positions of all the world's governments at one time, and it may be too much for a single article to try to describe all their shifting positions over time. So I think it's reasonable to have one page (this one) devoted to their positions immediately prior to the war and another page, which I now see isn't fully realized at U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, for their current positions. (The page on The UN Security Council and the Iraq war only discusses countries in the UN SC, so it doesn't replace either of the other articles.) True, people who read this article will not learn of shifts in positions, because that is explicitly not within the subject of this article (as it clearly states in its very first paragraph).

If you want to try to describe all the shifting pre-war and current positions on this page without exceeding the 30K limit, and rename it to remove "pre-war", more power to you. But I'd suggest creating a new page, something like "Governments' current positions on invasion of Iraq", and adding a sentence to the first paragraph here linking to that page for people interested in where everyone stands now. Neow 01:07, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

As I already mentioned, the subject of this article was not originally the pre-war positions, it only states so in the very first paragraph because of the reasons I explained above. I do not think an awful lot of additional information would be necessary to change it back, as long as we write concisely and do not mention every single government members' statements. I oppose the creation of any new page related to the war in Iraq given that this topic already floods wikipedia with dozens of articles that overlap significantly, cf. Talk:2003_invasion_of_Iraq#Iraq_War_Overflow Get-back-world-respect 01:26, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

If you think it can be done well in 30K, go for it. Neow 18:46, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

Wow. A lot of comment considering no-one knows what the original NPOV issue that User:Mrbrown raised is!!! Please note I simply suggested the name as a POSSIBLE issue - seeing as it had already been discussed! I didn't intend to drag that up!

I don't have any NPOV concerns myself! (I too would perfer the term "war on Iraq" in the title - as that is what it is/was. But that would be POV!!! )

Zoney 19:44, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

I remove the note given no explanation was presented within ten days. Get-back-world-respect 00:06, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Israel

As the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians should not be mirrored here, we should try not to revert wordings regarding related questions but rather explain here why we think a particular wording is worse or better. Characterizing cities in Cisjordania as Israeli or Palestinian is likely to be perceived as disrespectful. Regarding the opinion polls I would be interested, although as this is an article focussing on government positions Support and opposition for the 2003 invasion of Iraq would be more appropriate. Get-back-world-respect 23:50, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

New Zealand

needs to be updated. NZ has withdrawn it's engineers, and i doubt they'll be going back to iraq anytime soon.

Countries supporting the US stance

IMPOV Turkey and Saudi-Arabia should be moved from the section Countries supporting the U.S. position to the section neutral/unclear or opposing the US position. Anyone objecting? Gugganij 00:58, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I am going to move Saudi-Arabia to the section opposing the US position" within a week, if nobody is objecting. Gugganij 16:15, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Request for Sources

Could somebody back up the following statement with sources:

Section Saudi Arabia: After Saddam's regime had fallen, it was revealed that Saudi Arabia had likely been one of Bush's so-called "private supporters", as the Saudi government let the world know that Saudi Arabia had played a much larger part as a logistical ally in the war than anyone but a select few in the Saudi and American governments had been previously aware.

Section Controversies of World Opinions: During June of 2004, it was revealed that the governments of several countries, including Arab nations as well as France and Russia, had warned George Bush that Saddam Hussein had allegedly been planning attacks against the United States which were to be carried out shortly after the September, 11, 2001 Al Qaeda attacks.

143.50.221.53 12:09, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I am going to delete those section within a week, if they are not backed up by sources. Gugganij 16:14, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Since nobody reacted, I deleted those statements today. --Gugganij 21:55, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Inaccuracies with the Map

I have noticed that their are a couple of noticeable errors with the color coded map showing governments stances on the war, or at least it doesn't paint a complete picture. Mostly, I think it would be irresponsible to list nations like Turkey in the same category as Holland or Denmark, when the latter nations governments not only support the war but have personnel in Iraq(which is more than I could say about Turkey).

Could someone make a map that clarifies things like this a bit better? I don't want to delete this map, I find it rather handy.

Interslice

European Public reaction - Massive list of demonstrations

Whats this massive list of places where there were demonstrations? was it inserted by the European tourist board? It looks ridiculous to have such a big list of names. If there is nothing more useful to say about them then it should be reduced to a simple comment like' there were demonstrations in 34 European cities totalling 2,000,000 people. Numbers made up, but you get the point. As this article stands it has far too many lists, they become meaningless and obfuscate the important text.Sandpiper 18:19, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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