At what point and for what purpose will the United States go to war with Iraq? It depends on what the meaning of "regime change" is.

For months the meaning was clear enough: Saddam Hussein must go. President Bush has insisted that Saddam poses so immediate a threat to national security that the United States must drive him from power — alone, if necessary, and without waiting for an attack. "Regime change" was the organizing principle of American policy and the justification for war.

Now the president has toned down his rhetoric. In remarks earlier this week, Bush said the goal is to disarm Saddam "peacefully," not necessarily to boot him out of office. Inconsistent? The president doesn't think so. If the Iraqi leader were to comply with the directives of the United Nations, Bush said, it would signal that "the regime has changed."

That's a semantic touch worthy of Bill Clinton. With a slight twist of language, Bush redefined the objective of national policy, at least for the moment.

The comment was one more sign of the Bush administration's flexibility as it asks the U.N. Security Council to approve a resolution on Iraq. The Bush team has shown a willingness to try inspections. U.S. officials want the resolution to provide wiggle room for military action, but they aren't asking for an explicit authorization of force. Late in the game, the administration is trying to build a degree of international support for American policy.

Ultimately, though, it is the American people who will have to shoulder the costs and casualties of war. To them, above all, President Bush owes clear, consistent and credible arguments. His casual revision of the war's basic objective is the latest in a series of confusing and ill-founded declarations on the Iraqi threat.

The essence of Bush's case for war has two parts. The first is that Saddam is determined to acquire nuclear weapons, already has biological and chemical weapons, and may use any of them. The second is that a link exists between the regime in Iraq and the al-Qaida network.

Bush sold the war to Congress and many of the American people without providing clear evidence that Saddam is close to acquiring nuclear capability. And on the issue of biological and chemical weapons, the administration is of at least two incompatible minds. The president has argued that Iraq may use them "on any given day" or make them available to terrorists if the United States doesn't attack first. His intelligence experts, and the evidence of Saddam's past behavior, suggest the opposite: that Iraq probably won't use them unless the United States attacks.

On the matter of Saddam's alleged links to al-Qaida, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has assured the public that the links are "bulletproof." One of the administration's prime examples is a supposed meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta, the leader of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and a spy for the Iraqi government. There has been considerable doubt whether that meeting ever took place, and according to a report this week in the New York Times it almost certainly did not.

Against this background, Americans should remain skeptical of the Bush administration's shifting case for war. If many believe that Saddam Hussein has nuclear capability within his grasp, or that a link exists between Saddam and al-Qaida, it's not because the Bush administration has proved either point. On the brink of war, this president still needs to get his arguments straight and support them with credible evidence.

Copyright 2002, The Daily Camera

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