Not even on the reserve now, Terry, but even in my day we had to undergo lectures on international law, which laid down what was and was not permissible. We were also told that we could and should challenge any order we believed to be illegal.
That such challenges were not made was due to the fact that we were told categorically that there was a clear and present danger. We were also assured that the action we were about to undertake was legal (on the basis of a judgement which, to this day, the Attorney General refuses to make public). Even then, more than a few had doubts - but they tempered their misgivings by believing that removing Saddam would mean an end to division and bloodshed in the region and would allow an overdue account to be closed.
However, given what the intelligence services actually knew, and how this was spun by politicians and their staff, we were lied to.
It was a classic scenario where good men were duped by lesser men into doing the wrong thing. Pace Tim Collins - who then had to undergo the indignity of a trumped-up (and, thankfully, thrown out) war crimes allegation when he had the temerity to question the sense of the Iraq enterprise, after having spoken with such grace at its outset. I am given to understand that the knowledge that Bush framed a transcript of his eve of battle address to hang on the wall of the Oval Office is something that to this day TC finds hard to stomach.
As I have said elsewhere, I have absolutely no problem with the current operations in Afghanistan. Iraq is another matter. You know my position and it is not going to change. In a way I almost admire your faith - it reminds me of my Roman Catholic grandfather who was able to contemplate anything that life threw at him, including the death of his beloved wife, in the sure and certain knowledge that all would be well in the hereafter.