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We didn't need them on board. All we needed was for them to disagree less forcefully. The French, Germans, etc, were adamant and vocal in their opposition because of the way we were going about it. If we worked through diplomatic channels and were symphatic to their ideas and didn't treat them like the red-headed stepchild, they may have disagreed, but not so loudly, and their citizens wouldn't have had mass protests in the street.
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First of all, if you think for one second that the French, Germans, Russians, and their vocal supporters in North Korea, China, and Cuba were all for invading Iraq on humanitarian reasons, you have been S-P-U-N. Badly.
Secondly, while the USA is under credible threat of WMD attack, Germany, France and Russia were and are not. So outside of protecting their own people, the next bit of business is providing for those people. Germany, France, and Russia did do a large ammount of business with Saddam Hussein. Russia even had contracts set up in place that paved the way for massive military purchases to Saddam Hussein when and if UN sanctions were lifted. Germany and France were already tied up in multi-billion dollar contracts and were prepared to move in first when and if UN sanctions were lifted.
And France, Germany, and Russia are looking out for the best interest of the world?
The argument is that money and defense had nothing to do with their decisions to oppose the USA. The picture that is being painted is that they opposed the USA because President Bush is a "meanie"? Wow. And this is not in retaliation to points here in this thread, this is a world-wide justification for wishing Saddam Hussein was still in power. It's truly fascinating to see the truth be steamrolled.
As for treating them like red-headed stepchildren. Iraq was a threat to the USA. Not to Germany or France. We all know that. But Germany and France demanded that the USA ask for their permission to handle our own problems through the UN. And what did the US do? We obeyed their demands and went to the UN. We laid down the facts. The facts were that Iraq failed to comply with the 1991 cease-fire agreement signed by Saddam Hussein and failed to obey 18 UN Resolutions.
And what was the UN's response (particularly France and to a somewhat qualifying degree Germany and Russia)? That's right, they told the newspapers that any such movement by the US towards war with Iraq would be veto'ed. They allowed a 15-0 Security Council Resolution that allowed 300 UN inspectors search for hiding places while 250,000 US Soldiers breathed down Saddam's neck in massive mobilizations.
The Europeans were fine with that. 300 people searching for hidden items all the while the USA was spending enormous ammounts of money and resources to keep a quarter million men and women on high alert. It was all a game. It was originally spun by Saddam Hussein, but it was played by France, Germany, and the Russians even better.
And the massive protests? Saddam Hussein killed tens of thousands of people, perhaps hundreds of thousands, and more if you include those who died in the Iran-Iraq war and the Kurdish revolutions. And how many people protested for the world to do something about that? Who are these people who care only about who's doing the killing and not who's being killed?