Revving Up The War Machine

With tens of thousands of troops on the move, war seems more inevitable each day - which is exactly what the U.S. wants Saddam Hussein to think.

But America's chief ally, Great Britain, broke ranks when its foreign secretary told the BBC the chances of war are less than 50-50, reports CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin.

That will give Saddam reason to believe his strategy of cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors while still refusing to come clean is working.

Bush administration officials admit they have not yet made a compelling case for war. The CIA is being urged to make public more of its intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, but officials say there is still no smoking gun.

Which is exactly what the U.N. official in charge of hunting for evidence Saddam is hiding a nuclear weapons program said in public today.

"We haven't yet seen anything smoking gun, if you like, that Iraq has lied in its declaration on the nuclear issue," said Mohamed El Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

That's music to Saddam's ears, said a former U.N. weapons inspector.

"Iraq will immediately grab onto this and say 'look, not only are we saying the weapon inspectors haven't found anything, but the head of the nuclear watchdog agency team is saying we haven't found anything," Tim McCarthy told Martin.

The U.S. is counting on British Prime Minister Tony Blair to go to war with or without United Nations approval,

But his foreign secretary says Britain now favors going back to the U.N. for a resolution authorizing the use of force -- which at the moment seems unlikely to pass.

Pentagon officials insist the U.S. will go to war alone if it has to, but they acknowledge that would fuel the growing perception that America is an arrogant superpower.

Still, twelve years after driving Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, the massive might of the United States military is steadily preparing for another war in Iraq. And as was the case in 1991, a date in January looms large.

That year, Saddam was given until Jan. 15 to pull out of Kuwait or face attack. He didn't, and the war began a day later.

This time around, Iraq's foes have given no ultimatum. But the Jan. 27 deadline for the United Nations inspectors' final report could be the point of no return, if the U.S. deems the findings unfavorable. With an eye on that date, the Pentagon is quickly assembling a powerful force in the Persian Gulf region.

The White House insists war is a last option. And no single move indicates invasion is imminent. Instead, like a puzzle built piece by piece, a series of developments over the past month form a picture of a nation preparing for combat.

And the administration is not preparing just for war, but also for its aftermath. The New York Times reports the president's advisers are close to finalizing a plan for an 18-month occupation of Iraq by a large American military force - the largest such operation since the administration of post-World War II Germany and Japan.

The newspaper reports the administration is planning on installing a civilian administrator, rather than a military chief, to run Iraq during the occupation, but will not seek to set up a provisional government before the possible war. Iraq's oil would be sold to help pay for reconstruction, while Iraqi officials who helped the invasion or were not essential to the Iraqi regime might escape punishment.

Among some of other signs that war is coming: