along the same lines as Steve's summation (great, by the way) is the little publicized action of Saddam in which he led everyone to believe he had a lot more weapons (namely WMD) than he actually did. I have read where he did this to keep Iran at bay, who at the time was a very real threat to Iraq. Of course, this was buried in the pages of the papers where it would be the least read and scarcely mentioned, more or less in passing, on television. It worked as far as Iran was concerned, but ultimately backfired leading to his demise. Have all these people questioning the war forgotten when he repeatedly would not let the UN inspectors in and then all of a sudden invited them in like nothing had ever been amiss? His not letting them in is part of what influenced the decision to invade on the parts of congress and the other countries.