Removing Replication If Db Exists Using T-SQL

Hi,

I'm trying to write a create database script for a test database and I need to check if the database exists before dropping and recreating it. The problem I'm having is that the test database is also merge replicating so if the db exists I need to remove the replication and then drop the database. I'm running the script using osql from a NAnt build script. The script goes something like this:

USE master
GO
if exists (select * from sysdatabases where name = N'@INITIAL_CATALOG@')
BEGIN
USE [N'@INITIAL_CATALOG@']
EXEC sp_dropmergepublication @publication = N'@PUBLICATION@'
USE master
EXEC sp_replicationdboption @dbname = N'@INITIAL_CATALOG@', @optname = N'merge publish', @value = N'false'
DROP DATABASE @INITIAL_CATALOG@
END
GO
CREATE DATABASE ...

Where the NAnt script replaces the @PARAMETER@ fields before running the script. Running the script using osql when the database doesn't exists appears to fail on parsing the line "USE [N'@INITIAL_CATALOG@']" with the error "Could not locate entry in sysdatabases for database '[DatabaseName]' ..." and does not create the database. If I run the same script in SQL Management Studio I get the same error but it does create the database.

The script should only execute the USE [N'@INITIAL_CATALOG@'] statement if the database exists, but the parser isn't able to see this and returns an error. If anyone can see an error in this script syntax, or see a different way of doing the same function without getting errors I would greatly appreciate it.

Regards,

Greg