Focus on Iraq

I'm with John Lennon about war... give peace a chance.

But where I differ from my youth — when Lennon was alive and singing — is that I now question how exactly to give peace a chance.

Somebody said nothing focuses the mind quite like staring into the barrel of a gun, and that is what we're trying to do with Saddam Hussein — focus the mind.

We're also hoping that some of that focus transfers to Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Libya, and that they'll to go to Saddam to convince him to move to Uganda — or wherever — or to kill him.

The most direct road to peace when it comes to Iraq runs right through Saddam. The road could carry him away or it could bury him. Either way, it's the shortest route.

Now in order to do this, somebody has to put 250,000 highly armed men and women in the desert.

We've watched this guy 20 years now, and we know he's not going to do anything he isn't absolutely forced to do.

A threat is an empty threat — completely useless — if it isn't backed up by the determination to carry it through if demands are not met.

We want Saddam gone so we can go in there and make sure Iraq doesn't have the stuff North Korea has. That's the demand.

Bush's threat — the massing of troops, the huge deployments — these are the ingredients of peace.

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