Now that the opening salvos of Iraqi campaign have begun, Saddam Hussein appears to have won the first round.

The first missile strikes were launched with the specific objective of taking out Saddam and Iraqi command structure. This objective of targeting Iraqi command is to minimise civilian casualties, necessary where there is neither domestic nor international consensus endorsing US war aims, much less collateral damage and civilian casualties that they entail.

Unless it was his look alike that appeared o­n a televised speech three hours after, it is plain that Saddam survived. He has won round o­ne by just surviving, and hunkering down so that the war will be protracted.

He has to draw the invaders into the quagmire of urban warfare in which Iraqi snipers familiar with terrain could send sufficient body bags back to America to change public opinion about the wisdom of Bush's campaign.

Next, the prized oil fields that American/British commandos are supposed to take over in a dawn raid to prevent them from being torched. News are now trickling in that at least a few were ablazed, perhaps many more to come at devastating ecological and economic cost.

Besides, the sand storms and rising temperatures militate against the US-led forces staying longer than necessary in combat in their cumbersome protective suits against chemical and biological agents.

Although Iraqi oil reserves may have some bearing o­n war objectives, it is unlikely that the enrichment of Exxon or BP or the agenda of Bush oil lobbyists is the prime reason for US and UK-led coalition to wage a war of such scale without the United Nations endorsement - and to the detriment of the prestige and authority of the United Nations that otherwise could be a legitimising tool for the US in every foreign policy adventure.

Or that the American military industrial complex needs war against a small country to distract the public from the sputtering and faltering of late of its war economy.

Or that Bush is really that altruistic to care about the sufferings of Iraqi people under the brutal Saddam's repressive regime that he wants change.

Or that he is influenced by Zionist agenda of waging war against Arab Muslims.

More likely it is the psyche of the American defence establishment. More than ever after Sept 11 attacks, the 'defenders' of American security are obsessed with fear that Saddam's concealed chemical and biological arsenal will be made available to Islamic radicals and militants to inflict upon the 'Great Satan' irreparable harm.

In the possession of an unpredictable man like Saddam, anything is possible in the present climate of anti-America and anti-West prevailing in the Arab world that Saddam wants to be the great Saladin to.

America may be the sole remaining superpower with a nuclear arsenal that can annihilate the world many times over. So what could ultimately annihilate America and the American way of life?

Ironically it is the miniscule microbe virus that cannot be seen by the naked eye - the highly fatal, contagious or even mutated strains of Antrax, Ebola, Variola, Flavi, Alpha and Arenaviruses etc.

Highly infectious, water or air borne, these agents can decimate without early warning system huge populations as effectively though less instantaneously than thermo nuclear device.

That religious fanatics extremists and terrorists could successfully launch the Sept 11 attacks and may in future get hold of these biological agents and unleash them in the US is what Pentagon defense analysts worry incessantly - rightly or wrongly.

Military commanders, o­n the other hand, will naturally favour war. It is their reason for being. It is the reason for their careers to rise, fame to be spread.

It is the preponderance of the opinion of defence analyst and military commanders that weighs o­n Bush's decision to proceed with unilateral action based o­n 'self defense' and 'national security' notwithstanding large sections of domestic, international and allies' opinion to the contrary.

'Self-defence', 'national security' and 'forward defence by attack' are always good justifications o­n a stand-alone basis provided that there is validity and reasonable cause for their concerns.

The merits and demerits of US position o­n Iraqi therefore cannot be reduced to a simple equation of right or wrong based o­n choices between war and peace or sanctity of lives against loss thereof as anti-war proponents would naively have it.

So far, the opening salvos of the war have not yielded desired results in relation to US primary objectives of a swift incisive and decisive victory in decimation of Saddam and protection of the oil wells. It does not augur well.