I am against war with Iraq, here is why.
Iraq is not a threat to the U.S. They have not attacked us, and the only evidence Powell presented for their ties to terrorism is an Al Qaeda cell operating in their country, which can be said about many other countries on the globe, inlcuding ours. Their are no money trails, no arms deals, nothing at all concrete. We have no evidence of when a weapon is made in Iraq, it winds up in a terrorists hands.
The monetary cost is huge, at a time when our economy can't afford it. $100 to $200 billion dollars on top of the largest deficit increase in history.
We are expending a huge amount of world political clout to take down a non-threat to us. Even in many of the countries that support us, public opinion of the war is low. It is very possible that the next series of elections are won or lost based on support for this war, and that there are many more anti-American governments in the world because of it. It will be tougher to align the world with us after this when its time to take on legitimate threats.
We are going to help Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups rather than hurt them with this war. Iraq is not a breeding ground of terrorism, like Afganistan was. No terrorists groups are going to be at all disrupted by this war. They will instead be aided. More people will turn to their cause when the bodies start to drop for no good reason.
Finally, people are going to die. A whole toejampotfull of Iraqi's, and too many Americans, Brits and whoever else comes along with us.
To sum it up, the costs outweigh the gains, imo. For the end of taking down a government that we have no links to an attack on the U.S., we pay billions of dollars, have less influence in the world, convert more people to our enemies cause, and get some of our folks killed. These costs are only justifiable against a real, concrete U.S. threat, imo.
