AWESTRUCK

TIME has published the best war summary to date. Its description of events leading up the initial strikes aimed at eliminating Saddam deserves attention:

Sooner than anyone expected, Bush was back. On Wednesday afternoon cia Director George Tenet received an astonishing report, transmitted over the cia's classified communications network: U.S. intelligence sources had pinpointed the whereabouts of Saddam and his top military leaders in Baghdad; Administration officials told Time that the intelligence was gleaned from multiple sources, including electronic eavesdropping and reports from a single Iraqi official who had recently turned on Saddam. A senior Jordanian official says tips were also passed to the U.S. by a Jordanian diplomat and Egyptian intelligence agents, who claimed they had identified Saddam's exact location. For days, a senior White House aide says, the CIA had been conducting an all-sources operation to try to track Saddam's movements. On Wednesday they hit pay dirt. According to the aide, at least one CIA source gave the agency what it thought was "a positive ID" for Saddam. "It was very specific: This is where he is, this is where he's going, this is the possible location." If the U.S. military acted fast enough, it could kill Saddam while he slept. cia Tenet rushed to the Pentagon and briefed Rumsfeld on the report; the two called the White House to request a meeting with the President. An hour later Bush met with Tenet, Rumsfeld, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Air Force General Richard Myers and the other members of the war council—including Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Cheney and White House chief of staff Andrew Card. From his headquarters in Qatar, Franks dialed in over a secure line. The rest of the group spent the next three hours shuttling in and out of the Oval Office, discussing what to do with the intelligence on Saddam, running through scenarios and calling for more information. Fresh reports detailing the dimensions and coordinates of Saddam's bunker streamed in from the CIA.

Typically, meetings of a group like this are exercises in official decorum, with Cabinet members presenting the President with lists of options and no one speaking out of turn; White House officials say that on Wednesday the Oval Office was a swirl of activity. Chairs were dragged in from the hallway; the President's advisers leaned over one another and volunteered their assessments as more raw intelligence reports flowed in. Bush asked whether the weather might impede an attack on Saddam, how quickly U.S. forces could carry out the mission and how an early strike could affect the rest of the battle plan. Racing against the clock and unable to confirm much of what it was hearing, the U.S. ran the risk of making a costly opening-night bombing mistake that could embolden Saddam and his forces. Franks said he needed a decision by 7:15 p.m. E.T. At 7:12 Bush asked the members of his team for their recommendations; all of them argued for a strike to decapitate the Baghdad regime. Bush didn't need much convincing. "Let's go," he said.

Note the words I've put in bold--Jordanian, Egyptian. For a war opposed by "all Arabs," we sure have some interesting Arab support. They're trying to help us bump off Saddam. And for a war that Tom Freidman keeps insisting is "unilateral," it sure looks multilateral to me.