Machiavelli is not admire, but he knew his subject:

Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.

Then there are these words of David Mamet, I think, from the lips of Sean Connery in The Untouchables:

You want to know how to get Capone? Here's how you do it. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago Way, and that's how you get Capone.

Substitute "Saddam" for "Capone."

That's the Chicago Way, the Texas Way, and sometimes it's the only way.