To the editor:

During recent media coverage of our world’s situation, it has become more and more evident that Americans have an avid aversion to an armed conflict with Iraq. What many people are not realizing is that standard and customary diplomacy, while capable of settling many world problems, may not settle the current crisis.

Saddam has, for the better part of the past 12 years, defied United Nation mandates and resolutions that he disarm Iraq. He also has refused to allow inspectors to do their U.N.-approved task.

The threat of armed conflict is the final chance for the Iraqi president to comply. We, as members of the United Nations, have given him ample time to act in accordance with the United Nations resolutions. Seventeen times, we have given him an opportunity to show his good faith and confidence. Every time, he has come up short.

If this were baseball, he would have struck out 14 tries ago.

If this were a child, that child would have been permanently convinced that such behavior was permissible and acceptable.

With the atrocities of Sept. 11, 2001, our country and our people can no longer afford to assume that we live in a safe and secure corner of the world. War is the final step of diplomacy, and sometimes it may need to be used.

A man who leads a country that would commit genocide to its own people cannot be allowed to continue to rule.

Peter Cross,

Lawrence