Iraq War More Serious Than Vietnam-EU's Patten: "'The comparison... that Iraq could become as difficult an issue as Vietnam is misplaced, because I think it is arguably much more serious,' Chris Patten told a news conference after an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Ireland. 'If things go wrong in Iraq we will be living with the consequences for a very, very long time,' he added."

In all the long years of the Vietnam war, a war which claimed millions of lives, one would doubt there would have been a single incident of an Indo-Chinese attack within the US itself, or within Australia, or whether that would have even been conceived by the Vietnamese resistance. But in the Iraq/Middle East war - which has so far claimed the lives of only an estimated 10-50,000 people (at least in the most recent phase, post-9/11) - Bin Laden, Sept 11, Bali and Madrid have all made one thing clear: the war will be brought home to the other side. And what's more, probably with weapons of mass destruction if they can be obtained. Perhaps this is what Patten means by saying it could be much more serious, ie white people in the northern hemisphere could die in their masses, not just dark people in the south.

Iraq War More Serious Than Vietnam-EU's Patten: "'The comparison... that Iraq could become as difficult an issue as Vietnam is misplaced, because I think it is arguably much more serious,' Chris Patten told a news conference after an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Ireland. 'If things go wrong in Iraq we will be living with the consequences for a very, very long time,' he added."

In all the long years of the Vietnam war, a war which claimed millions of lives, one would doubt there would have been a single incident of an Indo-Chinese attack within the US itself, or within Australia, or whether that would have even been conceived by the Vietnamese resistance. But in the Iraq/Middle East war - which has so far claimed the lives of only an estimated 10-50,000 people (at least in the most recent phase, post-9/11) - Bin Laden, Sept 11, Bali and Madrid have all made one thing clear: the war will be brought home to the other side. And what's more, probably with weapons of mass destruction if they can be obtained. Perhaps this is what Patten means by saying it could be much more serious, ie white people in the northern hemisphere could die in their masses, not just dark people in the south.