The Art of War

Maureen Dowd: Powell Without Picasso. YA pundit has discovered that Bush's argument for war keeps shifting, as if the hope is that a dozen bad reasons will somehow add up to one good reason, at least in the minds of most of the public.

The administration's argument for war has shifted in a dizzying Cubist cascade over the last months. Last summer, Bush officials warned that Saddam was close to building nuclear bombs. Now, with intelligence on aluminum tubes, once deemed proof of an Iraqi nuclear program, in dispute, the administration's emphasis has tacked back to germ and chemical weapons. With no proof that Saddam has given weapons to terrorists, another once-crucial part of the case for going to war, Mr. Rumsfeld and others now frame their casus belli prospectively: that we must get rid of Saddam because he will soon become the gulf's leading weapons supplier to terrorists.