[St.Chuck]

Do you deny the Pope has sided with them--or that they were Saddam's buddies?

Both. I deny that the pope's reasons were identical to even one of the numerically unprecedented coalition of the unwilling. I would deny that Saddam had any buddies, and for you to imply that he did, and that the pope sided with them is calumny. None of the countries you list were allied with Iraq; none worked for an Iraqi victory. All believed that the same goals that the U.S. proposed in Res. 1441 could be achieved through less destructive means. That the pope shared this wisdom only adds to my respect for him.

[ultima ratio]

Chirac was LITERALLY a friend of Saddam's. They worked closely together for decades. It was France that built Iraq's first nuclear reactor--the one bombed preemptively by Israel. And it was France that blocked Bush in the UN and all attempts to resolve the crisis with Saddam diplomatically by forcing the regime into exile.

It was against this background, and precisely when Bush and Blair were trying to persuade France and Russia to go along with a second resolution, that the Pope decided to receive Tariq Aziz and give him stature and credence while undermining the US. Like France and Russia, the Vatican fueled and stoked the peace marches that were gathering all across Europe and the Muslim world. It was the Vatican that charged the US with coveting Iraqi oil--as if the US were as cynical as France and Russia--and itself. It gave little credence to Bush's promise of a war of liberation.

Meanwhile Saddam was cutting off tongues and pushing people feet-first into giant shredders. He had done this for thirty years. There are mass graves all over Iraq. Very few families have survived without losing someone. But this apparently counted for very little with this Pope.