Judging The Case

However, some officials question whether this new intelligence means that Saddam is actively collaborating with Zarqawi's outfit. U.S. officials familiar with the evidence said just hours after Powell's speech that the nature of Zarqawi's relationship with Saddam's regime--and its role in his medical treatment--was "unknown." Rather than controlling Zarqawi's group, Saddam Hussein's police state could be just tolerating its limited presence in Iraq. Moreover, German police documents obtained by NEWSWEEK suggest that Zarqawi and his group have extremely close ties to--and regularly operate from--Iran, rather than Iraq. (American sources counter that some crucial intelligence on the Iraqi connection to Al Qaeda was so sensitive that it was tightly held inside the U.S. government, and even within the intelligence community.) Powell's credibility was not helped by his high praise for a recent British paper on Iraqi deception. Tony Blair's spokesman admitted at the end of last week that sections of the report were copied from magazines and academic journals.

For Powell, and the administration, the lingering doubts matter little. Saddam's terrorist ties are not what brought U.N. arms inspectors to Iraq. Instead, Powell is focusing on Iraq's refusal to disarm, in line with last year's U.N. resolution. So the Bush administration has mapped out a strategy to maintain maximum pressure on the Security Council. The president will play host at the Oval Office to international leaders who support military action, such as Australia's Prime Minister John Howard, and Bush and Powell will continue to press for more international support before the U.N. inspectors return with another report on Friday.

Bush does not need another resolution to go to war in Iraq, and the Security Council's members know it. At the same time, White House officials have no desire to tackle the expensive job of rebuilding Iraq without full international backing. So the bargaining and feuding continue. European officials--including the Brits--are deeply skeptical about the administration's optimistic predictions that toppling Saddam could spark a democratic wave across the Arab world. Administration officials brush aside those Euro-fears, attributing them to nerves on the eve of a military action. A far more troubling question, still unresolved even within the administration, is what will come next in Iraq. Winning the war may be easy. Winning the peace is likely to be far tougher.

DEATH ON WHEELS: BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS

·POWELL'S CASE:According to defectors, Saddam has put his germ-war factories on wheels to evade inspectors. The fleet is said to include 18 or more "ordinary looking" trucks and an unspecified number of rail cars. "In a matter of months, they can produce a quantity of biological poison equal to the entire amount that Iraq claimed to have produced in the years prior to the gulf war," said Powell. It seems like a perfect dodge. "Just imagine trying to find 18 trucks among the thousands and thousands that travel the roads of Iraq every day."
·THE BOTTOM LINE:Biowar experts concede that no scheme is too crazy for Saddam. Still, they say, truck-mounted labs would be all but unworkable. The required ventilation systems would make them instantly recognizable from above, and they would need special facilities to safely dispose of their deadly wastes. A routine highway accident could be catastrophic. And U.S. intelligence, after years of looking for them, has never found even one.

MAP: IRAQ (With location of Baghdad)