Note the difference in press reaction to when British intelligence disputes a link between Iraq and al Qaeda, as opposed to its insistence upon data confirming Saddam's pursuit of uranium from Africa.

This doesn't go both ways, either; challenging the British claim to the former actually works through direct arguments.

UPDATE: The Daily Howler is continuing its indubitably anti-idiotarian defense - not of Bush, per se, but of the facts of the matter. Don't like the idea of Saddam trying to purchase uranium from Africa recently? Fine - just get the facts straight. It's impressive. I'm almost half-convinced I won't throw up reading any number of the Howler's articles that critique the right. Maybe a few urps. A slight, involuntary twitch of the throat.

Glenn Reynolds wonders aloud how Ohioans feel about the New York Times. We Midwesterners know how we're valued by the East and the City, and Ohio is a just-right-of-center state - so you can imagine the amount of daylight in between.

Anecdotally, regarding the Times story, I have yet to hear a single person in work or passing mention it once - a conversation about Cuba and North Korea the other day, not necessarily between cut-and-dried conservatives, didn't even come close to uranium.

Ah, but we wouldn't be Ohio without my metropolitan home of Cleveland where the main newspaper, the Plain Dealer, is happily performing the duty of toeing the left's line. Its foreign affairs correspondent is obviously intelligent and, from a radio interview I overheard once, sounds pleasant enough. But she's worked her way up to one hell of an up-high, flimsy limb with this one.

They represent, I represent. I responded in what is now an open letter:

Since the judgment of Saddam began to go against the way the left would have liked, your columns have become looser with reasoned arguments and thicker with rhetoric and supposition. Today's column is rife with fallacies.

The Daily Howler, a liberal classic, recently wrote an excellent editorial about the omission of the White House's precise defense for the purpose of demagoguery. It's excellent reading and cogent advice for the left should they wish to avoid the inevitable self-destruction of this latest hamstring attempt.

There are two unavoidable facts about the Niger documents, forgeries as they may be. First, the president's SOTU statement, imbued with innuendo by misrepresentation over the past weeks, was rather straightforward: the British had intelligence that Saddam sought uranium in Africa. Your July 10th column barely registered this - indeed, the truncated quotation is almost exactly identical to the dishonest "MoveOn.org" television commercial - and your column today simply leaves it behind, the situation now succinctly referred to as a "lie."

Second: assuming that the documents contributed greatly or wholly to that report, the British stand by their claim, which is neither a small fact nor information that can simply be discarded for the purposes of a streamlined argument. You address this in the 10th column with a glib, "The British did it." If the SOTU statement lacked attribution until now, you'd have a point, at least on a count of assigning blame after the fact. But the source of the information was provided from the beginning.

It happens that you are correct in your 10th column that political forces opposing liberation did not use the documents' rejection as a basis for any argument, a revelation made as early as March 8th - nearly two weeks before the beginning of hostilities. (Those in opposition instead warned of myriad catastrophes - major terrorist backlash, regional war, mass casualties, refugee exodus, the fabled "Rise of the Arab street" - that never occurred.) The lack of response to the questioning of the documents severely undercuts your argument that the uranium charge was a major component of the justification for war, notwithstanding its lack of use (and therefore its resonance with the American public) beyond the president's speech.

If we are to believe that the antiwar argument was serious in its challenge, it must have addressed all relevant flaws in the argument for military action. "Camel's nose under the tent" hardly counts as a logical challenge. You can't just wave off what arguments the Bush administration actually used as its dialectical backbone. If you believe that the administration made use of the quote to any major degree, prove it with media excavation - otherwise your argument is simply a lot of blowing of smoke. Read the Howler article.

The rest of your article drops straight into a morass of odd conspiracy theories. The military component of Resolution 1441 was American leverage? An uncorroborated report from CBS News? Those are bad red herrings and wackily ahistorical to Clinton's 1998 motivations taken in good faith.

Furthermore, where do you derive "lean" as an operative description of troop strength? I'd assume you would use an example of American-led reconstitution of an entire country after a victorious war. As numbers stand now, the Allies in Iraq are on par with the occupation of a country nearly identical in physical, habitable size, Japan (150,000 for 25 million versus 430,000 for 70 million) and, as of August, forces in Iraq will be double that (SCAP's forces were reduced to 200,000 by the beginning of 1946). Again, if you cannot offer any substantive contrast, you shouldn't be hazarding the observation. As for proof, the peanut gallery of retired generals and Democratic candidates who speak without context don't count.

I believed this past winter that Bush and Blair would trap themselves to a degree by capitulating to the United Nation's inherent inability to understand the Iraq's status - a dictatorship, contributing to a regionwide terrorist culture and in possession of illegal weapons - and legally advancing on the amoral subject of weapons only. If you're looking for "hidden" motives, winning the war on terror by defeating the Near East's culture of death through a toppling of the most dangerous, influential regimes first might be a place to begin.

The evidence against Saddam Hussein is overwhelming; he was not framed, nor did Bush need the uranium charge to convince the public. A niggling uncertainty will not go far. Most Americans will offer their benefit of the doubt not to a foreign dictator but to their president.

Baroque phase? It's well into Dionysian.

Great thoughts from Megan McArdle on the miscarriage of the left's Mordred to Bush's Arthur, the would-be "Uraniumgate." She quotes a Michael Kinsley column that fixedly works to wrangle scandal, duplicity and conspiracy to defraud from a questionable intelligence item, itself of subordinate importance to Bush and Blair's casus belli. Says Megan:

When the president's critics are reduced to quibbling over grammar, the battle is lost. This scandal may hurt the president, as the clever arguments about the meaning of the word "is" hurt Clinton. But I think it has far greater potential to damage the opposition, who, by engaging in such arguments, make themselves look like pettyfogging quibblers out to injure the president by any means necessary.

Not even, Megan. Clinton, we should recall, actually did lie under oath. Kinsley can excavate and contrast all he wants, but it doesn't bolster the otherwise flimsy girders holding up this whole travesty.

At last look, the accusation operates on the premise that the United States went to war not because Saddam Hussein had flagrantly defied United Nations disarmament verification, was in possession of a wide variety of illegal weapons and remained a menace to international security, but because British intelligence reported that the Iraqi dictator had sought purchase of uranium from Africa.

Is that too stringent? At the very least, demands to hold Bush accountable clearly imply that the failed uranium deal was a major moral and legal impetus up to, during and after military action. If errors in judgment on minor points made prior to the engagement were impeachable, they'd be holding trial in the Senate today because Operation Iraqi Freedom cost less than planned.

And if, unamused by the comic irony just previous, we insist that No, this isn't a "minor point" to attribute to the obscurity of intelligence and fog of war? It's not advisable: the charge of war on the condition of deception just doesn't stand up. The specific reference to uranium became understood as questionable (or at least less blitheringly obvious as the rest of Saddam's infractions) some time before the final warning from Bush and the beginning of hostilities. Are memories so short? The revelation certainly wasn't a talking point for those against Saddam's deposition: we were instead warned of the Arab street, international opinion, incredible casualties, mass refugees, and global war. As for Bush and Blair, nuclear weapons were far down the legal list, well below biological and chemical programs and stockpiles. Fears for combat centered squarely on Saddam's documented chemical and biological possessions. In the midst of the fighting, it's not as if every crawler scuttling on cable news read:

CENTRAL COMMAND EXPECTS 'ONLY DAYS LEFT BEFORE WE WIN AND SCOOP UP THAT URANIUM OVER WHICH WE WENT TO WAR, YOU BETCHA'

Which brings us to a simpler explanation for this foundering attack on a yet-imperviously trustworthy president: the uranium blowup is simply Plan C, and didn't pop up until after the first and second hamstring jobs on Bush failed to take.

For those who, when faced with weapons and programs that have not materialized, suspect not pathological mischief from Saddam but instead duplicity from Bush: Megan's right. Only stories with truth to them have legs; as soon as the Bush administration can recover from the shock of realizing how unscrupulous and politically empty their opposition is, the shelf date for this one will be nigh.

UPDATE: Robert Kuttner writes in the Boston Globe that he's quite happy to see the press "finally making an issue of President Bush's knowing use of a faked intelligence report on Iraq's supposed nuclear weapons program." Mr. Kuttner, the press couldn't concentrate on ginning up scandal from the uranium statement because they were too busy pinning other grievous crimes on the president, such as imperialist warmongering, mass murder, lobbing handouts to fat cats, losing on the road to Baghdad and watching a museum be stripped. Read this article - you can hear the man seething from behind his keyboard.

As a testament to his political ability and the perseverance of not only the Bush administration but the Allied troops, as well, Paul Bremer has managed a stunning success: a twenty-five member ruling council representing Iraqis of all stripes, particularly majority Shiites.

Before and immediately after the engagement, doubt hung leaden on the necks of skeptics as to the future of post-Saddam Iraq. From conservative war supporter Stanley Kurtz to vitriolic, anti-American Ted Rall, the prospect of committing American money, energy and lives to ensuring self-governance and a free market to the erstwhile military epicenter of the Near East seemed unlikely at best and imprudent at worst.

The prudence of the American ambition to overwhelm authoritarian governance and anarchic culture in the region through democracy can still be debated (albeit from a pessimistic, utterly cornered position) - but the likelihood of that wave beginning in Baghdad cannot:

Images of the inauguration were broadcast live by Western and Arab satellite television, received in about 40 percent of homes in Baghdad. Council members -- some dressed in traditional Arab robes, some in Islamic cleric garb, others in business suits -- sat in a semicircle of chairs on a stage before an audience of dignitaries.

The council includes 13 Shiites, five Kurds, five Sunnis, one Christian and one Turkoman. Three members are women. Shiites make up a 60 percent majority of Iraq's 24 million population, but they have never ruled the country and suffered deeply under Saddam's minority Sunni government.

"I helped deliver thousands of Iraqi babies, and now I am taking part in the birth of a new country and a new rule based on women's rights, humanity, unity and freedom," said Raja Habib al-Khuzaai, one of the female council members and the director of a maternity hospital in southern Iraq.

In Japan, despite an inherent cultural suspicion of politics, the continued presence of the Diet and a prime minister undoubtedly aided the progress of its reclamation. When the governing body embraced change, challenges to even the relatively liberal Meiji period would be softened by the cooperation of native statesmen; if the Japanese politicians resisted change and attempted to drive a hard bargain to thwart the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers' New Deal-like populism - as they often did - they served as an unwitting foil for liberalization, especially from the point of view of MacArthur, who often, on progressive initiatives, connected directly with the populace over the heads of reactionaries and enhanced the merit of his plans against an archaic alternative.

Another boon to this first stage of consensual government is the slow, steady rejection of extremism - after all, why choose hatred, death and destruction when you have the opportunity to achieve a healthy livelihood and the right to petition for grievance? The bellwethers in this group will help underscore the choices available to the Iraqi people:

Many of the Governing Council members were pro-American in comments made during a news conference after the inauguration, and several criticized Arabic television channels and the British Broadcasting Corp. for coverage they saw as pro-Saddam.

"For how long are these (Arabic) satellite channels going to wait for Saddam to return? Saddam is on the rubbish heap of history," Bahr al-Uloum said in response to a question from a correspondent with Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite broadcasting organization.

Ahmad Chalabi, founder of the once-exiled Iraqi National Congress, condemned attacks on American forces in the country. "The Iraqi people consider them forces of liberation and they don't consider these attacks as acts of resistance," Chalabi said.

As order is gradually restored to the country, ballots will soon be reliable enough to provide Iraqis the pluralist, capitalist, democrat leaders they - like any other people - need to prosper. Many challenges await, no doubt, but the first test of the occupation has been passed brilliantly.

Masquerading as news on the other side of the world, this rather embarrassing, desperate labor came up easily at a Google-provided string of newspaper articles on Iraq. Half of it is a slaughter of straw men, the other half a dubious attempt to slide in rhetoric and simple conjecture as incontrovertible, contrary evidence.

Any question of Iraq's complicity in the September 11th attacks was not addressed by the administration, let alone offered as justification for Saddam's deposition.

Lynch's ambulance fired upon by American forces? Quite unlikely, the claim part of a tasteless and thoroughly debunked attempt at wrecking one of the more notable moments of the engagement.

And those covered trucks exactly matching Colin Powell's description of mobile weapons labs? Out comes the meme that they were merely clandestine units for creating hydrogen, just like Grandma used to make, for weather or artillery balloons; this, despite the fact that hydrogen is best known for its transportability, or that the machinery - the machinery hidden inside trailers - is decidedly unsuited for creating hydrogen (a fact general undisputed but, as in the questioned article, simply sneered at - after all, why distrust Saddam Hussein?).

More egregious is an attempt to use the famous misquote. Three months after the fact, there is no excuse but disingenuousness, although malice might be a more fitting motive, as the paper has gone one step further with an out-and-out "This wasn't the enemy we wargamed against."

The blue ribbon for the most humorous transmogrifications of distorted opinion into fact goes to the conclusion that since the Allied occupation is overseeing a reengagement of Iraq's oil wells in addition to the administration of revenues thereof, including a possible universal trust fund, the resource isn't truly in the hands of Iraqis - as if some bank teller would be exchanging crude barrels for dinar by the hour. On the subject of chemical weapons used or exposed during military action, no anti-war sources who used the possibility as a reason against action are cited.

Good for a laugh and an exercise in reminding oneself of the facts but also a hard look at what continues to animate the left, in absolute irrecognition of what has transpired and what is being accomplished. "A scene unimaginable," indeed.

UPDATE: Bryon Scott took the time to fisk the entire wishlist. Good man. Good patient man. (From IP.)

No, I didn't take the doom-and-gloom reports seriously ("Piling up Disasters/Marking the Footage 'Raw'"), either. An incredibly balanced report from the Weekly Standard's Reuel Marc Gerecht:

With rare exceptions, Western newspapers, magazines, TV news, and radio uniformly tell the story of increasingly effective guerrilla movements, random violence, theft, rape, rising religious extremism, Shiite clerical dissatisfaction, Sunni Arab bitterness, antidemocratic tribalism and nationalism, angry and despairing U.S. soldiers, and even more distressed congressmen and anonymous U.S. officials. Poor American administration of the country, per this reporting--as always, most trenchantly expressed by the BBC--is producing an ill-tempered, ever more anti-American Iraqi population whose thankfulness for the destruction of Saddam Hussein's rule is probably ending.

[...]

AS I WALKED the streets of Baghdad at night, which in most districts of the city isn't a particularly dangerous thing to do, as I visited mosques and clerics in the Sunni and Shiite lands to the north and south, I picked up a fairly acute case of cognitive dissonance. Reading too much of the Western press before and especially during a visit to Iraq is mentally unbalancing. Though the problems in Iraq are enormous and the isolation of many U.S. officials in the Jumhuriyah Palace headquarters in Baghdad is surreal, neither the country nor its American administrators appeared to be sliding downhill into chaos. In most of Iraq--in the key areas of the country, in the Shiite south, the Kurdish north, and in Baghdad--just the opposite is happening. Productive energy and commerce are slowly returning to the streets, which is impressive given how long it is taking to rebuild a functioning nationwide telephone system. In mid to late June, U.S. officials--for all their clumsiness, lack of language skills, and enthusiastic ethos of "force protection"--appeared to be drawing closer to the Iraqi population, not farther away. This was especially true in the Shiite regions of Iraq, which are essentially everything from Baghdad south.

This conflict won't end any time soon, and it's quite obvious that Iraq's democratic rebirth is vital to winning the larger war. Now is not the time to play fair-weather friend to a prosecution that not only protects the free world but liberates those held in bondage.

CBS News has drawn its sword for Bush's blood. Too bad their lead is false.

I'm fed up. Henceforth, the topic of desperate, apoplectic attacks on the president will be referred to as the "Idiocy Bulletin." And that will be only to document the inevitable crumbling of this perfidious, horrifyingly irresponsible invention of crime and history.

I'll adapt a comment I made on Pejmanesque:

--

I'm still floored as to why the left contorts itself to believe that the Bush administration spent enormous amounts of energy towards falsifying evidence before military action but didn't give a single thought as to falsifying evidence when in Iraq.

There's an answer to this: they believe Bush is stupid when he needs to be stupid, and fiendishly clever when their conspiracy rubbish calls for guile. Nothing to do with logic, principle or reality. This is ridiculous. It's about time to pull the plug and throw people out of civil discourse on account of being partisan hacks.

Hear me out: this conflagration has nothing to do with Bush. It speaks volumes, instead, about his self-anointed enemies.

UPDATE: Just as I posted, a thought occurred to me: [if this nonsensical straw-grasping continues], the Democratic party is headed for their second split in about 150 years [i.e., nominally rational, left-of-center men like Joe Lieberman on one ticket and the growing number of liberals who have narrowed down their vocabulary these days to "Florida," "Bush," "oil" and "lies" on the other]. I'd give it less than three general election cycles. [Time to theorize]. More on this later.

UPDATE II (IDIOCY BULLETIN): Condoleezza Rice, a woman of powerful integrity in her own right but moreso an implicitly trustworthy administration figure for the otherwised prejudiced mainstream media, delivers a killing blow to this out-of-control, CIA-backroom fantasy. Here's the king:

If CIA Director George Tenet had had any doubts about the truthfulness of that sentence, "he did not make them known" to the White House, Rice told reporters aboard Air Force One during Bush's current African trip.

[...]

"If the CIA — the director of central intelligence — had said 'Take this out of the speech,' it would have been gone," Rice said. "We have a high standard for the president's speeches."

That's a direct refutation, on personal authority, of the CBS-CHB-etcetera story which directly states that CIA director George Tenet was not a part of the appraisal of the Nigern link. Not that he missed a meeting or lost the Niger memo. He wasn't in on it:

The top CIA official, Director George Tenet, was not involved in those discussions and apparently never warned the President he was on thin ice.

Incredible. The only way this can become even more dreamlike is if CBS claims that the unnamed sources do, in fact exist, albeit in wraithlike, anonymous form. If the right were anywhere near as voracious as the left, we'd be privy to watching the White House and allies hang these journalist agitators out to dry. As with Rice's eloquent shattering of the accusations, I expect to see a similarly graceful coup de grace from the president not long after his return from Africa.

UPDATE III: I moved a portion of comments I made in response to the Pejman topic to another entry. See below.

UPDATE IV (IDIOCY BULLETIN): CNN anchor Aaron Brown didn't flinch in the slightest from jumping on the CHB wagon (From Instapundit). CBS, for their part, has not exactly been forgoing quantity of negative reporting for quality. E. Volokh noticed a retraction of a perjorative heading in the half-explosive non-story. This is messy stuff, and messy stuff smacks of a desire for control of the matter, not the truth thereof. And since when can the media hide behind reasonable doubt when it prohibits the president to enjoy such luxuries?

UPDATE V (IDIOCY BULLETIN): Eugene Volokh just caught the second adjustment on CBS by its story. From IP, of course.

UPDATE VI (IDIOCY BULLETIN): No, the uranium case is not serious. It is a straw man, it's the best the left can do, and it will only further damage their credibility with Iraq's liberation. Alex Knapp takes it away. From IP.

UPDATE VII: Bill, can you sing "You Give Blogging a Bad Name" like Bon Jovi, all to hot-lixx guitar? Then I'd appreciate the "comment."

UPDATE VIII: Niger and Nigeria are two different countries, typos notwithstanding.

On Pejmanesque, another poster named Tom was innocently floating theories he'd heard [from above, moved here to reduce the entry's growing clutter]:

For Saddam to admit that the UN had disarmed him would represent a tremendous loss of face and influence.

Look, Tom, I understand that you're trying to make heads or tails of this, but the "loss of face" arguments rest on groundless assumptions that dance upon Ockham's Razor.

The world's largest army needed 150,000 troops, thousands of precision-guided air sorties and several weeks of unprecedented technologically inclined warfare to topple Hussein. What Near East country could have possibly taken military advantage of a disarmed Hussein, even if the world would let it? What about diplomacy? Saddam was already shunned and distrusted.

As far as sanctions - again, illogical. Control is one thing, productivity and economic power is another. 95%, say, of nothing doesn't beat 75% of a bountiful economy.

Finally: Saddam was a psychopath, not an idiot. Lose his country to "defy" the United States? No narcissistic killer throughout history has ever compromised his domain or self-preservation for values like honor or integrity.

Steve Malynn dropped a line on Tacitus.org, directing us to a Little Green Footballs gem. It's apparently an open letter from a solider in the Fourth Infantry Division. Exactly what we'd expect from an American soldier, it's mindfully optimistic and intolerant of distorted reports streaming from Iraq that work to paint the situation as a bloodstained boondoggle.

The letter aside, I've been drawing contrasts between the Ba'ath Party, the Nazis and Japanese militarists over the weeks: evil and worthless all, but the Ba'athists' refusal to formally surrender and overall unwillingness to capitulate - enhanced by the fact that much of Hussein's extended regime now seems to have been a jumble of thugs from all stripes of the ugly life that make the SA look like a homeowners' association - underscores the continuing violence as less a reason to consider withdrawal, second-guessing or defeat, and instead a greater motivation to step back for the broad picture and understand why these horrifyingly shameless infestations must be excised from the civilized world.

It's well-established that journalists, leftist intellectuals and soldiers who should have instead gotten their self-described "sorry asses" into Stateside civilian work are beside themselves with the lawlessness in Iraq - as if civil disarray in a decentralized, war-torn, impoverished nation were never to be anticipated. Part Ba'athist, part Islamist terrorist and part base criminal, the unrest is the first major challenge posed to Allied occupation forces.

Roaming crooks and party fanatics, taking advantage of the Allies' concentration on reconstruction tasks, are the final curse of the dead or missing dictator. Other instability is a consequence of the malevolent culture exported by Iraq's neighbors; Saddam Hussein has been deposed but as long as the majority of nearby nations toil under the same maddening worship of hatred and Iraqis are unable to physically and philosophically defend themselves and their borders, danger to Allies and Iraqis remains constant.

Add to the precedents of looting, chaos and lawlessness that occurred in the two most successful national reconstitutions, Germany and Japan, a semblence of uncompleted battle, as regional Islamists are far from exhaustion.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reminded us a month ago about the logically slow process of stabilizing a nation when under fire:

Do I think it's going to disappear in the next month or two or three? No. Will it disappear when some two or three divisions of coalition forces arrive in the country? No.

Arrests continue, the audacity of attacks have begun to level off and the implementation of Iraqi leadership has continued its upward progress. Nevertheless, a news report comes with rumors - strictly from anonymous sources - of conceding the future Iraq to the same countries who would have left it stricken with tyranny:

With American costs and casualties mounting in Iraq, the Bush administration is showing new interest in putting NATO in charge of the military occupation as a way of scaling back the U.S. troop commitment, U.S. and NATO officials say.

Such a change would discomfit some administration hard-liners, as it would force the United States to share decision-making on Iraq with European leaders who opposed the U.S.-led invasion, analysts said. It might also require seeking a mandate from the United Nations Security Council, which the United States failed to get before launching the war to topple Saddam Hussein.

But as the single most powerful nation in NATO, the United States would retain military command while spreading the burden and costs among a number of nations, thereby easing demands on overstretched American forces, diplomats said.

"There is interest" in turning the mission over to NATO, although not right away, a senior Bush administration official said yesterday. "I think the American public would be pleased to see NATO helping us in Iraq. ... Americans believe in NATO and would consider it a plus to have NATO secure Iraq."

Never mind that NATO, stretching its very credibility as a union, nearly abandoned one of its members (Turkey's narrow political ambitions aside). Moreover, NATO is, essentially, the United States in military terms. Europe spends a pittance on defense - so to what can cost-splitting possibly amount?

And let's be honest: we've seen evidence of heated disagreement between State and Defense on the methodology to be applied to Iraq's democratization, an early battle culminating in the early administrative musical chairs that instructed the departure of retired general Jay Garner and former US ambassador Barbara Bodine. This from within a single administration whose purposes, stated by the president, are clear. Imagine the policy contortions that would arise from the American-European rift alone:

Some analysts doubt NATO is up to the military challenge.

"NATO is not staffed, equipped or organized for the mission," said Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East security specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Moreover, France and Germany would likely set stiff conditions for agreeing to have NATO assume the lead in Iraq.

"You would need a whole package" giving allies a major role in decisions on Iraq's reconstruction and how its future government is organized, said Robert Hunter, U.S. ambassador to NATO under President Clinton. "It can't be just that the U.S. is still in charge of everything."

To this point I have remained confident with the Bush administration's ability to see through to success a stable, pluralist, democratic and free-market Iraq. We all know of Bush's rugged determination. Once the White House's objectives were stated at the end of major hostilities, Iraq's future became to me a simple matter of perseverance, adaptation and faith. Diluting the managerial clarity of Iraq's reclamation with Europe's general timidity, sultry realpolitik and penchant for pliant dictatorships could be a fatal blow not only to the country but to the war on terror - a war won only by destroying the Near East's culture of death and terror.

This is not an indictment: no White House officials have publicly stated any intent to politically withdraw from Iraq - indeed, this could simply be backbencher fantasies with a fancy headline - and, contrary to many dread-filled reports of troop strength, the Allies enjoy a force number over two times that of Japan, a country that for two years seemed on the verge of collapse after the end of the Second World War.

So let this be a poignant cautionary notice instead. In the meantime: chin up.

UPDATE: Rumsfeld, in his Congressional testimony yesterday, indicated a desire to delegate military responsibilities - so the White House's intentions do seem somewhat analogous to this report. The key, however, is political control; such a concession does not seem to be a part of the Bush administration's plans. Asking for volunteers to work under your jurisdiction is far removed from splitting leadership.