<Is there a better alternative to removing Saddam than risking the lives of thousands of Americans and the lives of hundreds-of-thousands of Iraqis? Is there another alternative, one perhaps involving far fewer persons
risking their lives and lives of others?

Sure. Punch a hole in Saddam with a Hellfire missile, or a tunneling nuke, but we're not supposed to do that.

No world leader wants to set a precedent for assassination as a tool of warfare, since that would put their own fat butts on the line. And since world leaders set the rules of warfare, there is an ironclad rule against specifically targeting world leaders.

Note that the leaders in all these conflicts never get so much as a hangnail, although some nations worry more about casualties than others. Wouldn't mind seeing Arafat strap on a bomb belt once.

If assassination became the rule instead of the exception, after a few generations of this, the human race would be vastly improved by selecting out a lot of those who believe that it is their destiny to tell their nations what to do and how to live, and to enforce their rules by the gun.