I was a lowly undergrad polisci major at the time. I never demonstrated but it was clear as day to me that the preemptive invasion of Iraq would not be the cut and dry operation it was sold as -- and I can prove that I'm not claiming 20:20 hindsight because I kept the essay I wrote after hearing conservative NYTimes columnist William Safire speak at my school promoting the invasion in the weeks leading up to it. An excerpt:

> "His discussion on the war with Iraq is where I most disagreed with Mr. Safire. He spoke almost exclusively in terms of logistics and not potential realities. To him Iraq was a threat pure and simple and the United States had the obligation, the right, and the capability to neutralize that threat, with or without the UN. He offered troop estimates from potential allies in Turkey and the UK, and the explanations of the military superiority of the US as if anyone in the audience was wondering if the US had the means to militarily incapacitate Iraq."

And the concluding sentence:

> "Safire said quite effortlessly that Saddam is a threat that must be neutralized at all costs, but he doesn’t think the costs will be all that great. If he and Bush are wrong it will be one of the greatest political blunders in recent history."

Everyone knew that Iraq was a war of W's choosing and was mostly motivated by the influence of Cheney and Rumsfeld. The doves were uniformly against war as anything but a last recourse, and the idea of starting one on shaky pretenses was abhorrent to us. What we didn't know ahead of time was that the pretenses were even thinner than we imagined and there weren't in fact WMDs, which made the whole thing all the more farcical and tragic.