FRED KAPLAN AT SLATE SAYS THAT COLIN POWELL DELIVERED THE GOODS ON SADDAM:

Secretary of State Colin Powell’s briefing to the U.N. Security Council was far more powerful than anyone had predicted. Not all his points were equally compelling: Some, as he admitted, were open to interpretation; some were vaguely sourced (if understandably so). But contrary to his own (clearly low-balling) remarks of recent days, Powell did produce the proverbial “smoking gun.” And, while his evidence may not have been quite as shattering as Adlai Stevenson’s U-2 photos of Soviet missiles in Cuba, it came remarkably close—so much so that, if the Security Council does not now take action against Iraq, it might as well disband.

Sounds like win/win to me.