Your rhetorical leap from the Kaiser's submarines to Saddam Hussein's reputed weapons of mass destruction and "...potentially catastrophic consequences for humanity " is as illogical as it is breathtaking.

You say " ...we can accurately predict the the future of a nuclear armed Iraq with Saddam at the helm." Yet, you fail to provide the reasons why anyone should think you have this amazing ability.

You also apparently fail to see the irony of citing Iraq's ineffective sniping at our planes as proof of the dangers posed by that nation or its dictator.

Far from being a casus belli, Iraq's ineffective sniping only serves to underline the effectiveness of UN sanctions in emasculating Saddam Hussein's military and impoverishing the nation under his yoke.

These random pot shots pose little threat to our planes, and amount to little more than a shaken fist at our jets overhead.

Nevertheless, they shouldn't do that, and allied planes are authorized, I surmise, to fire back.

I have no appreciation for the state of the Iraqi air defense system, but my hunch is that it has been chewed to shreds.

There is a price to pay for those pot shots.

It may be worth mentioning here that aircraft of the former Soviet Union not only fired upon, but actually downed more than a dozen USAF reconaissance aircraft during the Cold War, but the United States did not use these incidents as casus belli

Almost as alarming as the breathless warnings about Saddam Hussein is all of the loose talk about the Iraqi dictator unleashing the ill-starred weapons of mass destruction against the United States.

Some people seem sooo sure something like this is going to happen, that I get queasy just thinking about it.

In Minority Report, this summer's Steven Spielberg offering, Tom Cruise peers into his crystal ball and then dashes off to prevent murders before they take place.

Spielberg, who finally earned his sheepskin from my alma mater this year, and Cruise, one of America's leading men, have both spoken out in support of Pres. Bush recently.

It seems therefore artfully appropriate to ask if some people - like the cop played by Cruise in Minority Report - are gazing into crystal balls, or if, like Spielberg, they already have the script in hand.

sp