A United States invasion of Iraq would involve killing a large amount of Iraqi civilians. I believe this alone is enough reason not to invade. An Iraqi life is just as important as an American life or any of the other six billion lives on Earth. .
The last thing the U.S. should do is provoke the existing animosities towards U.S. influence in the Middle East. An invasion of Iraq will increase the number of enemies of the United States, and the probability of future terror attacks against the U.S. and its allies. We need to realize that we are not going to stop terrorist by military force. We cannot hunt down every terrorist in the world. We need to stop terrorist by giving them a reason not to hate us. The State Department's own annual report Patterns of Global Terrorism 2001 presented no evidence of any current Iraqi support for active terrorist groups.
A United States invasion of Iraq would be a clear violation of international and US law. The US is bound by federal law to abide by the UN Charter, and therefore is subject to abide by UN Security Council resolutions. Article 2 of the UN Charter forbids "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state" and requires UN members to "settle their international disputes by peaceful means." .
The US said that Iraq has or will develop "weapons of mass destruction," threatening the US and Iraq's neighbors. Former UN arms inspector Scott Ritter has stated that by 1998 that Iraq had been "qualitatively disarmed." Since the UN withdrew the weapons inspectors to protect them from the US led illegal "Desert Fox" bombing campaign of December 1998, there have been no more weapons inspections in Iraq. There is no clear-cut proof that Iraq has chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, and Iraq has never claimed it was targeting the US. Just targeting Iraq alone to eliminate "weapons of mass destruction" violates Section 14 of the Security Council Resolution 687, which calls for region-wide disarmament.
