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# Posted 5:10 PM by Ariel David Adesnik

CHRISTMAS IN BAGHDAD: Josh asserts that Bush administration plans for Iraq are running on schedule. Yet as David Broder points out, the administration intially hoped to have the confronation with Iraq reach its climax this fall, not early next year. After being forced to shift its timetable, the administration then found out that it had to alter its justification for attacking Iraq as well.

In the summer, Vice President Cheney and others said it was the imminent threat of Iraq's acquiring nuclear weapons that required action. But when international agencies and allied intelligence services said they were skeptical that Iraq had the materials for such weapons, even if it had the desire, other explanations were forthcoming.

The president gave the United Nations a list of Iraq's offenses, down to and including its failure to account for prisoners taken during the Persian Gulf War, and indicated that Iraq would have to make amends for all of them to avoid military punishment.

And finally, when Democrats including Al Gore and Edward M. Kennedy suggested that a war with Iraq might cost us allies and energy for the war against terrorism, the administration discovered and publicized links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

If the current negotiations at the UN last longer than the Bush administration expects, don't be surprised if the justification for Iraq shifts once again -- in a manner that perfectly complements the administration's new timetable.

And while we're on the issue of insufficient preparation for a war with Iraq, take a look at this op-ed in the WashPost, which points out that no one has considered how Saddam's use of chemical and/or biological weapons will affect the Kurdish allies we will be depending on to help topple Saddam and rebuild Iraq.

Also see today's NYT op-ed on the absence of administration plans for how to deal with Iraq's Shiite majority, which is in no way represented by the dissident groups with which the State and Defense Departments are accustomed to working, namely the Iraqi National Accord and the Iraqi National Congress.

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