Atrios pointed out this article in The Globe and Mail by Jeff Sallot describing the unanswered questions that prevented Canada from supporting the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq one year ago:
OTTAWA — Canadian officials say they challenged the U.S. to share secret intelligence showing that the Baghdad regime had dangerous weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the Iraq war, but Washington failed to deliver, thus cementing the Chretien government's resolve to stay out of the conflict.
Washington's refusal to share raw intelligence with its close ally seemed puzzling at the time, one senior official said. But a year later, the reason now seems clear: "They didn't have any evidence."
The Canadian government apparently shared the same frustration I was encountering as an American citizen in the months preceding the invasion. The Bush administration repeatedly promised to offer evidence, but instead provided argument:
At least twice President George W. Bush's advisers said they would come to Ottawa "to present the case" for war, says this Ottawa official, who worked with Mr. Chrétien on the Iraq file in the Prime Minister's Office.
"We weren't interested in 'the case.' We were looking for the evidence," the PMO official said, dismissing the U.S. offer as nothing more than a "PowerPoint slide show."
That distinction — between "the case" and "the evidence" — was one reason I was never able to climb aboard the war train. American citizens were assured that such evidence existed, but that it had to be kept secret for reasons of national security and so as not to endanger our sources, etc. But surely the Canadian government, the ally that is literally our closest, would be allowed to peek at this secret evidence in order to win their support for the invasion, after all:
Ottawa's and Washington's intelligence agencies normally work so closely with each other that they share even the most sensitive information, including spy satellite photos, wiretap tapes and other raw intelligence.
But no. Canada instead had access only to the same dubious arguments that American citizens were confronted with. Nothing more. And just like America's citizens, they were being asked to offer financial and moral support for war on the basis only of the assurance that more compelling "secret" evidence existed.
"Trust me" is not an adequate basis for war. As Abraham Lincoln argued, citizens have not only the right, but the duty, to oppose any war advocated on the basis of "secret" evidence.
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