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Saddam Hussein made news the other day despite the 24-hour media saturation focused on Michael Jackson's death, Sarah Palin's bizarre resignation and Gov. Mark Sanford's philandering in Argentina.

The Saddam story illustrates how a nation's leaders -- both America's and the enemy's -- make gross miscalculations that lead to horrifying consequences.

Shortly before Saddam was executed, FBI agents interrogated him off and on for four months (the CIA had already done so). Summaries of more than 20 FBI sessions were released a few days ago under the Freedom of Information Act.

Think back to 2003 when Saddam refused to allow U.N. weapons inspectors to re-enter Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction (he'd previously kicked out inspectors).

President George W. Bush insisted he had solid evidence ("a slam dunk") that WMDs were hidden there. He warned Saddam that he risked military action if he refused to re-admit U.N. inspectors.

Saddam would not relent. The United States attacked Iraq on March 20, 2003. Six years later, the war slogs on costing billions of dollars and thousands of lives.

According to the Pentagon, 4,308 U.S. troops have been killed since the war started. Other sources report that 100,900 Iraqis have been killed while tens of thousands have been injured on both sides of the conflict.

Saddam's behavior had always been puzzling. Why had he refused to admit inspectors even though he knew no WMDs existed? (President Bush grudgingly admitted later that no WMDs existed, thereby negating his primary reason for attacking Iraq.)

During the FBI interviews, Saddam told interrogators he knew inspectors would find no WMDs but would reveal Iraq's military vulnerability to its next-door neighbor and bitter enemy, Iran. The two countries had fought an eight-year war in the 1980s and Saddam told FBI interrogators he feared another war with powerful Iran if weapons inspectors revealed his military weaknesses.

The Iraqi dictator told the FBI he did not seriously believe President Bush's threat to attack. Saddam "was more concerned about Iran discovering Iraq's weaknesses and vulnerabilities than the repercussions from the United States for his refusal to allow U.N. inspectors back into Iraq,'' according to a summary of the interrogations.

What about the Bush administration's claim that Iraq harbored al-Qaida terrorists? Not so, Saddam said. He called Osama bin Laden "a zealot," and said al-Qaida had made no inroads in Iraq.

If these fallacies -- no WMDs, no al-Qaida -- had been disclosed earlier, the Iraq war might have been averted. Instead, President Bush and Saddam misjudged each other.

The Iraq war is by no means the first time that miscalculations have led to devastating actions. The death this week of Robert McNamara, 93, stirs memories of another war built on misjudgments and miscalculations.

McNamara was secretary of defense and chief architect of the Vietnam War that left more than 58,000 American troops dead and thousands physically and mentally wounded.

The Vietnam War was launched after Secretary of Defense McNamara told President Lyndon Johnson there was ironclad evidence that patrol boats from communist North Vietnam had attacked U.S. warships in the Gulf of Tonkin on Aug. 4, 1964.

At the behest of President Johnson, Congress authorized war with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

Johnson and McNamara believed in "the domino effect" espoused by President Eisenhower: namely, that if Vietnam fell to communism, all of Southeast Asia would fall.

U.S. intelligence reports released in 2005 showed that no such attack occurred that night in 1964. U.S. ships had been firing at radar shadows.

McNamara died a guilt-ridden man. In his 1995 memoir, he wrote that the Vietnam War had been "wrong, terribly wrong." In a 2003 documentary, "The Fog of War," McNamara said the most important lesson about war is to know your enemy. "We must try to put ourselves inside their skin and look at us through their eyes."

Luckily, President Obama is not trigger-happy. Unlike Bush and Johnson, he believes in talking to the enemy, including Iran. As a student of history, Obama knows that miscalculations can unleash deadly wars.

The FBI interviews with Saddam Hussein underscore that history lesson.

Rosemary Roberts writes a column on alternate Fridays. E-mail: rmroberts@triad.rr.com