Though you'd need to be blind, a Ba'athist or a newsanchor to have believed that the doddering, off-balance old man politely motioning for "One side, one side" in Baghdad was Saddam Hussein, an interesting concensus is growing in the vanguard of media speculation that the deposed Iraqi dictator is still alive.

The New York Times in particular has run a story (link via Andrew Sullivan) encapsulating the most important parties' opinions:

If Mr. Hussein is alive, the prevailing view among intelligence analysts is that he is still in Iraq. These officials said they suspected that he would feel safer seeking refuge among his supporters in familiar surroundings, rather than risk fleeing to another country, where he could be at greater risk of discovery by American intelligence.

Beyond the intelligence officials, aides to President Bush have begun to express less certainty about the question, saying they do not know whether he is dead or alive. They include those aides who in the immediate aftermath of the war said Mr. Hussein was probably dead.

Increasingly, other officials in the United States and Britain have said publicly that Mr. Hussein probably survived the war. Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Fox News last weekend that "probably the majority opinion is that he is alive." The British defense secretary, Geoff Hoon, said in Australia this week that "my judgment and the judgment of the coalition remains that he is almost certainly still in Iraq."

My own intuition still says that the man is dead. Anyone else and the idea of the Ba'athists keeping their leaders' spector alive would seem silly - but Hussein's rule was derived directly from the terror he instilled. He'd be the perfect bogeyman to keep the Allies overfocused and the Iraqis trepidacious.