Howard: we don't need Saddam's head to win the war.

Australia's Prime Minister John Howard says coalition forces will be able to claim victory in Iraq, with or without the capture of President Saddam Hussein.
The Iraqi leader has appeared again on state television, and has issued a statement urging Iraqi citizens to rise up against the US-led invaders.
But Mr Howard says the fate of the Iraqi leader is becoming increasingly irrelevant.
The Prime Minister says although it would be good to see the Iraqi leader brought to justice, getting rid of the regime is the true aim.
He says he doesn't know what will symbolise a victory for the coalition.
"You claim victory when the circumstances warrant it. They don't at the moment" he said.

That's very encouraging, isn't it. We know that what we want is regime change but we don't know exactly what will constitute that... all we know is that we don't have it yet. You can't imagine what confidence those words give me in our ability to conduct this war. Are we just going to make it up as we go along like we did in Afghanistan where we went in supposedly to capture and/or kill that Bin Laden character and then settled for ousting the Taliban?

posted by James Russell | 4:29 PM