Dissecting The Case

(6 of 6)

Once you buy into that fear, the rest follows a plausible logic. Few dispute Bush's characterization of Saddam as a brutal dictator who has attacked his neighbors, produced weapons of mass destruction and employed chemical ones. He has broken international law, mocked treaty commitments and flouted the U.N. The global community defeated him in war and ordered him to disarm, only to be defied for more than a decade. He has never, in his 24-year dictatorship, shown the least willingness to reform, even when his people nearly starved under the brunt of international sanctions. "In my judgment," said Bush last week, "you don't hope that therapy will somehow change his evil mind."

And Saddam is explicitly hostile to the U.S. and its interests. If he acquires a nuclear weapon on top of his hoarded biological and chemical ones, he will, according to Bush, wreak catastrophic harm on his enemies, which means the U.S. The ultimate method, said Bush, would be for Saddam to hand off to a terrorist network "one vial, one canister, one crate" of his deadly weapons "secretly and without fingerprints" to "bring a day of horror like none we have ever known."

To the President, that means Saddam poses an unacceptable risk for the future of the U.S. and all its global allies. Better war now than after such an infamous day. The Bush Administration promulgated an entirely new national security strategy last September to enshrine the principle of using force pre-emptively to stop hostile states from acquiring weapons of mass destruction or sharing them with terrorists. As a practical matter, the U.S. has the military superiority to change Iraq's regime and is convinced that the perils of undertaking it are outweighed by the risks of inaction. The Administration believes that in the face of such moral clarity, who needs more evidence? No wonder Bush is so impatient with reluctant warriors who don't share his unblinking certitude, whether they're fellow Americans or allies.

But as Bush acknowledged late last week, he would prefer that U.S. citizens and the Security Council back him in this fight. That's why Powell spent the weekend at home in northern Virginia, honing his performance. Bush made clear that this "final push" for U.N. benediction would last "weeks, not months." To the true believers, Powell's message may feel like time wasted, but his success is crucial for the Security Council leaders who need credible cover if they are to join Bush on a crusade their own citizens overwhelmingly oppose. And it is crucial also in reassuring millions of Americans that taking on Saddam now is preferable to waiting for him to take on the U.S. first. --Reported by J.F.O. McAllister/London and Timothy J. Burger, Massimo Calabresi, John F. Dickerson, Mark Thompson and Michael Weisskopf/Washington