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Everybody leads with President Bush's ultimatum to Saddam and his sons: Leave within 48 hours or face invasion. "The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities," Bush said. "So we will rise to ours." Nobody thinks Saddam will skedaddle, including his foreign ministry, which rejected the demand yesterday before it was even made.

As the Wall Street Journal and New York Times note, U.S. officials said troops are going in even if Saddam leaves; it's just a question of whether they'll go in fighting.

Plan accordingly: Citing one, and just one, Pentagon official, the NYT mentions that if Saddam announces that he's sticking around, the war might start "in less than two days." [Emphasis added.]

The Journal says that the war will start with air attacks and small-scale special operations, with a big ground invasion following no sooner than three days later. The Los Angeles Times bets that everything will happen nearly simultaneously.

The papers all note that British Prime Minister Tony Blair took his first war-related hit yesterday when Robin Cook, Blair's former foreign minister, resigned from Blair's Cabinet. Meanwhile, as the Post highlights, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the coming war "a mistake." Canada also told the U.S. that it will not be sending troops.

Everybody mentions up high that Turkey's government has decided to make a last-ditch effort to get its parliament to agree to let U.S. troops in, or at least give American planes overflight rights (a crucial issue for the U.S. and one that the press hasn't fully picked up on). The U.S. has warned Turkey that without a deal Turkey won't get an aid package, and the U.S. will oppose any Turkish troops poking around Iraqi Kurdistan. This isn't a moot issue: As some papers explain, it'd still be useful for GIs to move through Turkey even after the war starts. And of course, Turkish troops are still unwelcome in Kurdistan.

The papers all notice the harsh smack that Bush delivered to France and probably Russia. "Some permanent members of the Security Council have publicly announced they will veto any resolution that compels the disarmament of Iraq," said Bush. "These governments share our assessment of the danger, but not our resolve to meet it." (Here is Slate's Will Saletan's take on the speech.)

Bush also spent a chunk of the speech pushing the alleged connection between al-Qaida and Iraq, charging that Saddam "has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al-Qaida." Most of the papers, exhibiting acute signs of  learned helplessness, or maybe just bored with whole thing, don't challenge the president. The Washington Post  is an exception. It headlines, "BUSH CLINGS TO DUBIOUS ALLEGATIONS ABOUT IRAQ." The story runs on page A13.

As soon as the war starts, Bush is expected to give another address, this one from the Oval Office. The papers also say that in the next few days the president is probably going to ask Congress for $60-$90 billion for the war and immediate reconstruction.