Oct. 7, 2002 -- In an article titled "Hail Caesar!" Salon's Gary Kamiya explored President Bush's foreign policy and its implications and considered the cost-benefit ratio posed by the talk of invasion: "It is impossible to know what will happen. But deciding whether or not to invade Iraq requires making a judgment about the possibility that the Middle East may go up in flames as a result, or that the attack will breed future terrorists in the region and around the world, or that other nations will emulate us and launch invasions of their own, or that our allies will turn away from an out-of-control America -- and balancing those possibilities against the chance that Saddam will use WMD at some point in the future. Confining ourselves only to one possible negative consequence, dangerous instability in the Middle East, the answer is clear: It is much more likely that an invasion of Iraq will inflame the Middle East than that Saddam will use WMD against the United States or its allies. Even if al-Qaida never existed and there had never been a Sept. 11, invading a major sovereign Arab nation would be an extremely risky undertaking, one likely to spin out of our control."
Oct. 10, 2002 -- Retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, formerly the head of the military's Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East, was intensely skeptical of the Bush administration's plans to invade, repeatedly warning that the occupation would be vastly more difficult than the administration believed. In a speech at the Middle East Institute, he gave one of his most rousing denunciations of the coming war: "If we think there is a fast solution to changing the governance of Iraq, then we don't understand history, the nature of the country, the divisions, or the underneath suppressed passions that could rise up. God help us if we think this transition will occur easily ... There were 98 opposition groups the last time I counted; I think now it has increased a little bit. If you believe that they're all going to rush to the palace, hold hands and sing Kum Ba Yah, I doubt it. If you think that people won't see opportunity to do things that will cause concern in the region, whether to the Iranians, the Turks or others, and go against what we hope will happen and against agreements that will be made, then I think you could be sadly mistaken. If you think it's going to be easy to impose a government or install one from the outside, I think that you're further sadly mistaken and that you don't understand this region ... The attempts I've seen to install democracy in short periods of time where there is no history and no roots have failed. Take it back to Somalia and other places where we've tried. It's not an easy concept. It's not an easy form of governance to put in place and to be understood. Remember it happened well for us. We had a revolution of elites in this country, which is the exception. Every place else where this has happened, it's been bloody, difficult, and long term with a lot of friction. We can ill afford that in this part of the region."
Dec. 6, 2002 -- Scott Ritter, the former United Nations weapons inspector, was demonized and marginalized before the war for his frequent opposition to the invasion and for his belief that Iraq did not possess the WMD the administration claimed. In retrospect, of course, he was vindicated, but this day saw him relegated to speaking to an audience of 500 at the University of Utah's Museum of Fine Arts Auditorium. "If Iraq threatens the security of the United States, the people in this audience, then maybe we have a case for war," he said. "But I haven't seen any facts to back up the allegations that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Let's put proof on the table before we act."
March 19, 2003 -- Speaking to the Senate on the eve of the invasion, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.V. inveighed against the war in the strongest possible terms: "After war has ended, the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq. We will have to rebuild America's image around the globe.
"The case this Administration tries to make to justify its fixation with war is tainted by charges of falsified documents and circumstantial evidence. We cannot convince the world of the necessity of this war for one simple reason. This is a war of choice.
"There is no credible information to connect Saddam Hussein to 9/11. The twin towers fell because a world-wide terrorist group, Al Qaeda, with cells in over 60 nations, struck at our wealth and our influence by turning our own planes into missiles."
Additional reporting by Tracy Clark-Flory.
About the writer
Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for Salon.
Jonathan Vanian is an editorial fellow at Salon.
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