Cardinal Pio Laghi, pope's envoy to Bush

VATICAN CITY - Cardinal Pio Laghi, a longtime Vatican diplomat who went to Washington to try to dissuade President Bush from launching the 2003 invasion of Iraq, died Saturday at a Rome hospital. He was 86.

Pope John Paul II tapped Laghi, a former envoy to Washington, in 2003 to meet with Bush on the eve of the war.

Laghi, who had been friendly with the Bush family, delivered a letter from John Paul and pressed Bush on whether he was doing everything to avert war. *

- Associated Press