WASHINGTON – In comments that echo the Bush administration’s line, Maine Republican Sens. Olympia J. Snowe and Susan M. Collins took up positions behind their president Monday night, offering at least tacit support for his goal even if they have differed in how he had reached for that outcome.

“With his address to the nation Monday night, President Bush offered Saddam Hussein and his sons the opportunity for a peaceful solution, by leaving Iraq for exile,” said Snowe in a statement. “For the sake of his nation, I hope Saddam Hussein will heed the president’s words.”

“Tonight it appears that the only hope for peace is if Saddam willingly leaves Iraq,” said Collins in a statement.

Rep. Michael Michaud said the only real rallying point that will unify him, the Republican senators and hopefully all Americans is the need to support the troops and their families while they are being sent in harm’s way.

“The president still hasn’t said too much as to why we should attack Iraq, and I remain deeply troubled by that,” Michaud said in a telephone interview Monday night. “I want Saddam Hussein disarmed, I want him out of power. But we have to work with the United Nations to deal with him.”

Michaud said that the danger of the way the president has developed his foreign policy is seen in the damage it has likely done to U.S. alliances and to the position of the United Nations in the world order, and in the animosity that may come from a more unified Arab or Muslim view of the intrusive nature of American policies in the Middle East.

“And what will North Korea’s response be?” Michaud asks. “Will they think they will be next?”