You do remember that there were weapons inspectors in Iraq before the invasion began. They stated many times that there were no weapons in Iraq.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/03/21/iraq.weapons/
[quote:67c04]"I think they chose to ignore us," Blix said[/quote:67c04]
As for the other part, lobbying against the invasion of their own country? Its not really tough to understand why they would do this.