however, saddam didnt do that. he didnt claim he would. we even had inspectors from the UN in his country trying to prove he couldnt even if he wanted to. he didnt have the technology. osama had been making that claim for a while. too bad we helped train him in the first place. osama is a religious freak willing to commit suicide for his cause. saddam is fat lazy oaf who just wanted to sit in his expensive palaces and be left alone. you really think he would risk all he had to attack us?

and as ive stated before, if we use pre-emtpive strikes, whats to keep other nations from doing the same against each other? its a great blueprint for WWIII, aint it? and keep in mind, japan pre-emptively struck us-using your logic, that makes them correct in their decision, since THEY saw US as a threat. this is where diplomacy doesnt stand a chance, becase we have people like you on both sides that say "we need to attack first so that you dont have a chance to!" while the other side says, "nope, WE are going to attack first before you can!". wow, what a great world we live in.

only difference with iraq is, they made no interests in attacking us. they hated us, but hate doesnt always equate action. your point is completely theoretical, the "what if" theory. by your reasoning, even the most undeveloped tribe of natives in a village in south american could SOMEDAY develop to the point of being able to theoretically/hypothetically attack us, so we should probably do missle strikes on their little village now, huh? in fact, theorretically every citizen of iraq COULD be a future terrorist, so i guess we should pre-emptively strike back at that and start executing everyone over there too!