The actual attack on Iraq was supported by 24 % of Czech citizens in the first half of April, while 70 % did not agree with it. However, simultaneously the attack on Iraq without the mandate of the Security Council of the UN was labelled as acceptable only by 16 % of respondents, whereas 77 % expressed an opposite standpoint. Supporters of military action against Iraq most frequently named the reason for their opinion as the necessity to remove Saddam’s regime (29 %), the necessity of fighting terrorism (23 %), the necessity of securing international safety (14 %), inevitability and justification of a military solution of the problems with Iraq (9 %) or the necessity of eliminating Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (7 %).
Respondents, who voiced disagreement with the attack on Iraq, reasoned their stand by saying that war affected innocent people (27 %), that they themselves never agreed with war or violence (24 %), that the attack on Iraq without the mandate of the Security Council of the UN was an act of aggression (20 %) and that it concerned the power and economic interests of the US and other attacking countries (12 %), that searching for a diplomatic peaceful solution to the Iraqi crisis should have continued (5 %) or that there was no reason for the war, because Iraq itself had not attacked anybody nor had it been directly endangering any state and because no allegations relating to the supposed existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction or programmes for their development and production were confirmed (4 %). After the beginning of the attack on Iraq, only a quarter of respondents (25 %) thought that this step would bring a positive effect in relation to suppressing international terrorism, while two thirds (65 %) had the opposite opinion.
