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...Iraq last weekend delivered a 12,000-page declaration of its WMD activities as required by UN Security Council resolution 1441, and by week's end Bush Administration officials were decrying it as a recycled fib that failed even to address the questions left unanswered by the last inspection regime which departed in 1998. But unless the UNMOVIC inspectors discover any hard evidence of the Iraqis maintaining prohibited weapons programs - evidence U.S. officials have hinted may be difficult to provide - Washington will likely struggle to convince the Security Council to authorize a war. Not that this would stop the Bush...
...Axis-of-Evil to-do list. The optimal moment to launch an attack is in February or March next year, which requires the Administration to make its case for war in the next four to six weeks - without much help from Saddam, who appears inclined to allow the UN inspectors to poke around under his bed in order to keep the U.S. war machine at bay. And that leaves precious little time for Washington to address other international crises...
...hasty document grab, claiming the right to exclusive access - and, apparently, also, the right to leak chosen bits - won't have helped U.S. efforts to maintain consensus at the Security Council. UN officials and other Security Council member states expressed disquiet Tuesday at the U.S. action, and vowed to complete their own security review in order to get the document to the full Council by next Monday...
...Still, the emerging reality for the Bush Administration is that sealing the case against Iraq at the UN Security Council will require hard evidence. And UN inspectors have said repeatedly that they've yet to receive any intelligence from the U.S. or Britain that could point them to locations, documents or individuals that might prove U.S. accusations. The Bush Administration may insist that the onus is on Iraq to prove that it has disarmed, but in the eyes of other Security Council members there's clearly pressure right now on the U.S. and Britain to come forward with evidence that...
...Administration can afford the wait because it has not yet completed the military buildup to the desired invasion-strength force. But the optimal date for an invasion is believed by military analysts to fall within the first quarter of 2003, and it's far from clear that the UN inspection team will have established a definitive finding on Iraqi weapons programs by its February reporting deadline. Unless Saddam obliges by ending his cooperation with the UN before then, the Bush Administration may face some tough choices before winter...