Ten Reasons Why the War is Wrong

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1. Iraq was no threat to the US or UK. There is no evidence it has or is close to having a nuclear capacity, nor that it has the means to launch a chemical and biological attack against the US or UK, if in fact it has such weaponry. There is no evidence of any Iraqi connection to al-Qaeda. All US or UK attempts to prove otherwise have rapidly been proved to be outdated, forged, or both.

2. The war is making Iraq a threat. "Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW against the United States," wrote CIA Director George Tenet in an Oct. 2002 letter to Congress. "Should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions."

3. Iraqis are being killed. They are dying from bombs and bullets, water contamination, disruptions in electricity supplies to hospitals, disruption in food supplies, and from residues from cancer-inducing depleted uranium weapons. Half the population are under 16 years old.

4. Britons are being killed. The only way to really support the troops is to demand that the war be stopped. The government is using them as pawns in a war which the British people never wanted, and is sacrificing their lives to assist its spin doctors.

5. War breeds terrorism. A war on Iraq and subsequent occupation will provide recruits for al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. 6000 people have already left Jordan to join the Iraqi army, according to one BBC report.

6. Inspections work. The previous inspections process was succeeding before the US pulled inspectors out to start war. Most inspectors are angry at not being able to finish their job.

7. Preventive war is against international law. If it were legitimate to start a war because of what another country might do sometime in the future, then anyone could start a war, any time.

8. There are better things to spend our money on. The war will cost Britain alone over £3.5bn. That could have been spent on the NHS, schools, public transport, keeping rural post offices open, decent pay for public sector workers. The total war bill could buy food for every hungry person in the world.

9. The real beneficiaries are US corporations and politicians. US companies have been allocated all the post-war reconstruction contracts already. US administrators have already been named for Iraq after the war.

10. There are better solutions to our energy problems. This is a war for oil and dollars. The US warned Saddam Hussein not to switch his oil revenues from dollars to euros last November, and now stands to enter massive recession from loss of his dollars and those of other major oil producers. The real solution is for the US to change its oil-greedy economy, and to help the rest of the world stop relying on the pollutants that are destroying life on this planet. Most of Bush's advisors, however, are employees or ex-employees of oil companies. So is Bush himself.

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