There is, in short, now no legal or political impediment to the sort of swift action that offers the best hope of toppling Saddam with minimum U.S. casualties and at the least further cost to the Iraqi people: The weather conditions are about as conducive to military operations as they ever are in that part of the world. Sufficient American and British units are now or shortly will be in the region to execute lightning strikes at Saddam's security apparatus. And evidence grows by the day that the Iraqi populace senses its liberation is at hand and is prepared to play a role -- possibly a decisive one -- in ending Saddam's nightmarish reign of terror.

This outcome is, of course, the only one that holds out any hope for effecting the genuine and complete disarmament of Iraq. After all, even if -- against all odds -- Saddam Hussein were actually to cooperate with international efforts to find and destroy his weapons of mass destruction, and such efforts were to succeed, he could be back in the WMD business within six-months time. That period could be shortened even further if, as seems likely, a declaration that Iraq was WMD-free would precipitate the end of sanctions against Iraq.

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