President Bush has made attempts to draw similarities between the current Iraq situation and the situation we faced during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but some panel experts recently showed their disagreement with his comparisons. Here are a few samples of what the experts think, from today's St. Petersburg Times:

"We were this close to thermonuclear war, and I don't see us at that same crisis point now," said Sumner, holding up his thumb and forefinger, a sliver of space separating them. Sumner, 80, was posted at U.S. Strike Command in Tampa in 1962.

"We had aircraft overhead at all times," said Sumner of Tampa. "We had trucks and tanks on the ground. The Tampa Bay area was full of troops."

(snip)

Sherwood, 75, who lives in Hudson, said he has been impressed with the sophistication of special forces troops, who are better trained and equipped than ever before. Nevertheless, he thinks they would face difficult situations in Iraq — more so than what paratroopers would have seen in Cuba.

"We're still going to take some heavy casualties if we go into combat situations," Sherwood said. "I don't think that would have been the case in Cuba."

He said another difference was one of logistics. It's a lot different conducting a remote war than it is to fight in your own back yard. And Sherwood is concerned about the danger of biological and chemical weapons, which have evolved greatly in recent decades.

(snip)

"I don't believe there was much discussion at all," said John Guenther, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel stationed in Guantanamo Bay. His job included talking to Russians who were on the island.

"We didn't have the state leader to state leader discussions that you have today," he said.

Moderator John Wilson, WTVT-Ch. 13 anchor, said he was a reporter working at a radio station at the time. In retrospect, he said, the public knew little of what was going on, that an invasion of Cuba was imminent.

"It was far more involved than any of us knew," he said. "It's important for us to know what is going on in the government."

(snip)

Sumner, who was involved in high level discussions at U.S. Strike Command, said the U.S. was prepared to use nuclear weapons.