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saddameter: The odds of war in Iraq.

No HurriesThe odds of war.

By William Saletan
Posted Monday, Jan. 13, 2003, at 1:45 PM ET

Chance of Invasion
Today: 61 percent

U.S. backs away from late January as war-decision deadline. Key factors: Turkish and Security Council resistance. U.S. official adds, "We don't have a good war plan; the inspectors have unprecedented access to Iraq; [and] we have just started giving them intelligence." Fleischer says Bush thinks inspectors should "have time to do their job." ElBaradei says they need "a few months." Britain begins to frame inspections as effective containment. Turkey lets U.S. survey bases for possible troop deployments. U.S. offers asylum to Iraqi scientist-informants and says it might divulge more weapons intelligence to inspectors, but an American official says U.S. intelligence "is not that good."

Friday: 62 percent

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William Saletan is Slate's national correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.
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