Leach says critics should offer asylum to Saddam as an alternative to war

Iowa Congressman Jim Leach says the U.S. does not need U.N. support to proceed with war against Iraq. Leach, a republican, says though it would make things much easier. Leach says U.N. support does not have to come in the form of approving war. He says Germany, France and Russia ought to be very aggressively saying they would willing give Saddam Hussein asylum in a resolution that states Hussein has lost his mandate to govern. Leach says it’s not good enough for those countries to be critics of the U.S. without proactively presenting the alternative to war of offering asylum to Saddam Hussein.Leach says lack of UN support raises one big question about the U.S. action, will the U.S. be perceived as a liberating or occupying force?. He says without the U.N. support, the occupying element goes up and the liberating element recedes a bit. Leach says there are lots of other implications as well if the U.S. goes to war with U.N. support involving how people around the world are going to react, and whether we’re going to be encouraging terrorism or restraining terrorism. He says with each passing week, it appears we’d be more likely to encourage terrorism. Leach says if it looks to the Arab world that we’re using too much force, it could be detrimental to our relationships with the Arabs. While he says if we use too little force, it could raise concern among American citizens.