Once when I was working for a different newspaper years ago, I was covering a trial.

A witness was being questioned by the prosecutor.

The question asked was pretty straightforward. A "yes" or "no" would have been sufficient.

Instead, the witness, we'll call him Mr. Dodge, responded - very eloquently, I might add - that depending on circumstances and how the question was interpreted, the answer could be "couched in either the affirmative or the negative."

I will never forget that quote because of what happened next.

The judge, one eyebrow arched in a sort of annoyed disbelief, asked the witness, "What, then, is your answer, Mr. Dodge?"

This comes to mind because it reminds me of how I feel when it comes to the whole war-on-Iraq issue.

We had CNN playing in the newsroom during Colin Powell's statement to the United Nations Wednesday morning.

I must admit I was pretty impressed with the amount and quality of information he provided. If there was ever a doubt about how bad a guy Saddam is, it was erased by Powell's speech.

But even today, if you asked me if I think we should start a war in Iraq, I would probably give you an answer akin to the one Mr. Dodge gave in court that day all those years ago.

After our conversation, you might be left wondering, "What, then, is your answer, Mr. Gerard?"

This is why I'm glad I'm not the one who has to make decisions on whether our country goes to war.

I get to sit around my nice comfy office and write about the decisions of elected officials. I get to enjoy the full protection of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The very same Constitution that has been defended over the years by troops who were sent to war by elected officials.

Ironic, isn't it?

All that aside, I am really struggling with this whole Saddam/Iraq thing.

On the one hand, I would just like to see us run the guy out of that country and destroy all his weapons in one fell swoop. The guy is trouble. He thumbs his nose at the United Nations and the rest of the free world.

He starves and poisons his people while flushing his toilet with a gold-plated handle.

He seems pretty much devoid of any level of conscience.

Pretty much everybody agrees he's a scary guy, and Iraq - and the rest of the world, for that matter - would be better off without him.

Remember the Gulf War? Everybody said back then we should have marched right into Baghdad and should have run Saddam out of the country.

Remember why we didn't? Because that wasn't the U.N. directive. The point of the Gulf War, per the U.N. resolution, was to liberate Kuwait.

That's what we did. We liberated Kuwait. Once that was done, we stopped because we would have had to go it the rest of the way on our own, without the sanction of the U.N.

So what is the current U.N. directive? To disarm Saddam.

The resolution says he either disarms or we disarm him. It doesn't say anything about running him out of Iraq or poofing him out of existence.

To disarm him and leave him in power seems really silly to me, but it seems to me that's what the U.N. resolution says.

That bothers me.

I also have a little trouble with the idea of a pre-emptive act of war.

I mean, we'd be declaring war on Iraq because sometime in the future it might do something bad to us.

As I said earlier, Powell's case was very compelling.

Saddam's hiding weapons. There are some al-Qaida types hanging around Baghdad. Saddam's done really inhumane things to the people of his country.

I don't doubt any of it.

But as compelling as it was, it certainly wasn't surprising. We already knew all that stuff.

And is Saddam really a threat to us any more today than he was 10 years ago?

His country is crappy. His infrastructure is crappy. His technology is crappy.

Nonetheless, there is a chance that he could provide enough assistance to a terrorist group that they could do bad things to America.

Sure, there are plenty of other countries who hate us and have capabilities to do harm, but they aren't quite as overtly antagonistic as Saddam.

And please, don't tell me this is all about oil. That's just wrong. Those oil conspiracy people are the same people who harp on W for being an oil man. Oil companies in the U.S. stand to lose big if the U.S. gets in the Iraqi oil business.

So do we go to war?

"What, then, Mr. Gerard, is your answer?"

I am going to have to say yes. I certainly wouldn't want it on my conscience if we stood back and allowed Saddam to perpetrate some chemical or biological catastrophe.

But I am going to hang a condition on it.

None of this disarming. Saddam must go.

If we go to war, this time Saddam needs to spend the rest of his days on some atoll in the South Pacific - or in a box.

Because if Saddam stays, I am going to have to try to answer this highly vexing question again a few years from now.

And frankly, I'm tired of thinking about it. [[In-content Ad]]