Any nation, especially any nation under constant threat of attack by larger nations, has the absolute right to have in its possession whatever weapons it is capable of arming itself with. It just doesn't have the right to a "first strike" on its neighbours.

It is the USA which is now claiming that right.

Iraq made a first strike on Kuwait in 1991, and paid the price for it.

The USA is now announcing its intentions to make a first strike on Iraq, a country the USA has already badly crippled over the last ten or more years.

In either case, it's naked aggression. As far as I'm concerned, Saddam Hussein's government has the same right to possess weapons of mass destruction as does the government of the USA...just not to use them on someone. That's why this whole brouhaha is so hypocritical in the first place. The American government which feels free to invade anyone it pleases and terrorize anyone it wants to, cannot accept a world in which its potential victims are allowed to arm themselves in a similar fashion to the way America does. What arrogance. What presumption.

It is because North Korea already has such weapons that the USA is disinclined to launch a first strike on them. This is quite a sharp lesson to other small countries. If you want the USA to keep its hands off you, get some nukes in your armoury, and do it fast would appear to be the lesson.

No one hastily attacks a country with nuclear weapons strike capability...not even the USA.

And when in history has a large aggressor been allowed to completely inspect the entire military infrastructure of its next target on the ground from A to Z...before launching an invasion? Wow. Talk about having your cake and eating it too!

- LH