The idea that Saddam might go the way of Hitler made some sense during the first war. Though nobody thought that Saddam would be a menace on the same scale as Hitler, he could cause a lot of trouble in the region. To a certain extent I think this was correct, if Saddam had gotten away with attacking Kuwait the idea of attacking Saudia Arabia or Iran would have eventually surfaced.

But that comparison does not make sense now. Saddam has a very limited army now and a starved country. He can't build up his forces or move them around at all because everybody is watching his every action.

The only danger from Saddam now comes from the WMDs, weapons he is only likely to use if attacked. If he isn't attacked, he has every reason to hole up and guard his stockpile carefully. He knows that actually using or selling any of it would mean his destruction, unless it could be kept 100% secret, which if very unlikely.

Also, with Chamberlain at least some historians think he knew quite well what he was doing when he signed that peice of paper. He was buying Briton time to rearm at the expense of Poland. At the same time he was proclaiming peace and waving that paper around, he was spending every pound he could on military budgets and buying as much military hardware as he could.

Jay