I may be missing something, but why exactly is the US so worried about what the Pope may have to say about the current crisis? Regardless of any other considerations (and there are quite a few) as to why this seems like a relatively irrelevant concern, Saddam Hussein’s propagandists will, doubtless, attempt to portray any invasion of Iraq as the latest in a long series of Western crusades against the Muslim world. Under the circumstances, a papal endorsement would seem to be, well, rather counter-productive.