[Conservative til I die]

As a Catholic, I find the Pope's position embarassing. Jesus did not say "Keep in evil dictators at all costs."

I respectfully disagree with what you're saying here. I think it's ridiculous to say that the Pope's objective is to protect a tyrant like Saddam Hussein "at all costs." The Pope's is trying to stress that war should be a final option and if possible, find a peaceful way to end this. It's been alluded by the US government that if Hussein were to go into exile, this would be satisfactory. Now I know and you know it's not going to happen, but if it did, wouldn't that be a satisfactory solution? I support the war, but I don't believe that we should go to war just for going to sake of war. If the objective is to remove Hussein so we can keep him from making or using his weapons, that's fine. If he were to step down, I can't see the purpose of going to Iraq other than to look tough.

[prairiebreeze]

saddams henchmen would need to step away too. No point having one despot replaced by another. so that might be a reason to continue with going in even in the remote possibility that Hussein went away.