mlsoft, you got to be careful with these allegories. If you decided to "take out" the unarmed bully on the block without the appropriate "due process" you'll have the "authorities" on your back. The downside with taking out Sadam unilaterally is in the precedence ii creates, it lowers the bar for future conflicts, maybe to an unacceptable low level, and in the future, you may find China doing a preemptive strike against Taiwan because "Taiwan is becoming so technologically advanced" that is is a threat the China national security. Iran could take a preventive strike against Israel because the Israeli might take out the Hitzbulla that keep bombarding the Israeli North and so on. Without an over threat to our national security, such a preemptive strike will be tough to justify, and ten years hence, and if such a strike is carried out now, nothing will prevent other "would be" International Law and Order" cops from taking actions that are not acceptable to us, under the same guise we are going t act against Iraq.
Zeev.
