[piasa]

The difference is that if Iraq had a nuke to test it would test it in NY City or Washington DC via its friends, or with one of its own agents. Iraq isn't just trying to blackmail us for money as North Korea is doing. Hussein wants revenge.

Hussein's government officials, his diplomats, have been engaged in assorted acts of terrorism wherever possible and they have worked with al Qaeda for years. Iraq's leadership is one which has expansionist aims, which is quite a contrast to Noth Korea's, for example.

TIraq isn't content to just isolate themselves behind a fence and paint aggressive posters to wave at "imperialists."

It's silly to even consider letting a regime like Iraq obtain those weapons. Iraq had the sense to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, and Israel had the sense to bomb Iraq's. The world would be a good deal better off if we had prevented nasty regimes from getting such weapons- if we had, North Korea wouldn't be the cesspool it is. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.

[Kip Lange]

and Israel had the sense to bomb Iraq's

And thank God for that, it set them back several years in their WMD programs.

[Burkeman1]

Since 1991 and the Gulf War Iraq has done next to nothing. North Korea on the other hand- has sent numerous commando raids into South Korea. Had numerous naval battles with South Korea. Outright lied to us and continued to develop a nuke program while we fed them (that was Clinton), fired an intermediate range missle over Japan, sold missle technology to Pakistan and Syria, and threatened to incinerate Seol South Korea. Meanwhile we want war with Iraq which has less to do with Al Queda than most of our Middle East "allies". Sorry- I don't quite get it.