As for finding Saddam, obviously he'll make himself available to visiting politicians, but I don't think we could persuade a Vatican representative to go in with a machine gun. ;-) And anyway, everyone who visits Saddam no matter how important is subject to security checks to make sure they're not carrying anything that could shorten Il Duce's life.
But the point is that it's not just Saddam the West wants to get rid of - it's the whole Tikriti clan of his: the sons, cousins etc. Even supposing you could send in SAS or US Marines to assassinate several score people, you're then left with the problem of how to run the country, because it would fall into anarchy without something to replace these people. Hence - an invasion.
Sarah
At 1:47 PM -0800 02/16/2003, David Marine wrote:
It seems that after the protests, the rhetoric surrounding the coming war is now focused on regime change. I have heard the arguments that if we simply take out Saddam, an equally distasteful despot will emerge from his posse. But how can we know unless we try? I have also heard that we can't "find" Saddam, that he is always on the move. This confuses me (and I admit here that I may be obtuse). Why can't we find him and assasinate him? How did the Vatican representative find him last week?
