[damien]

NATO is a defensive alliance - the members agree to defend each other from external agressors - they dont agree to automatically support each other in foreign invasions.

Iraq is not threatening to invade Turkey, and if Iraq and Turkey do go to war with each other it will be Iraq acting in self-defence, not to mention the fact that it will more likely be the Kurds fighting the Turks as the Turks move to invade northern Iraq to control the oil there and to squash any ideas of an independant Kurdistan.

I dont think that those kinds of actions were what NATO was formed to support. The turks have a human rights record almost as nasty as the Iraqis, especially where Kurds are concerned.

I do agree, however, that if Saddam still has weapons of mass destruction, that he would be less that cooperative in disarming.

On the other hand, can you imagine any circumstance in which the US (possesor of more than 6000 nuke warheads) would comply with a UN order to disarm?

The US, for instance, is a signatory to the now 30 year old Non-Proliferation Treaty. This treaty, in essence, is an agreement between the nuclear armed states and the non-nuclear armed states that the non-nuclear armed states will remain that way and the nuclear armed states will join them. Theres no sign that the US, or any of the other nuclear states, ever intends to go non-nuclear.

What this means is that any state with ambitions to act on the world stage, in a way contrary to US policy, MUST have nuclear weapons to deter the kind attack that Iraq is looking like it will recieve.