Presumably Brit Hume took seriously recent Bush claims that the US economy is vulnerable to an attack by Iraq* or an Iraqi-backed terrorist. And I don't know why Rumsfeld didn't think of casually charging Hussein with world-class terrorism. Without that charge Hussein & Kim Jong II logically deserve the same treatment, either the Cold War treatement (containment) or an outright war (rollback).
My favorite false start was when Rumsfeld tried to explain that Iraq's weapons were an actually existing threat whereas North Korea's are really only a potential threat. Hence the kid gloves with North Korea.
Unfortunately that begged the question of why we don't take one set of very ominous threats seriously (NK) while we treat the other claim of there being no threat as cause for war (Iraq). Don's hole was very deep at this point.
Other rationales included the obligatory 'Saddam's a very very bad man who gassed his own people and started a war with Iran." But it was too hard to move on from there to make the case for the good-natured qualities of the North Korean leadership.
I've gotta find a transcript. Preferably one with all the twitches, brow wipes, averted eyes and talking into one's shirt written in. It was really too good.
joe
* Given the distance from Iraq to the East coast of the US has anyone thought of testing airport security by trying to smuggle a Scud missle onto an airliner in a carry-on?