In case you thought it was safe to dismiss war against Iraq

No American dignitary, least of all a President or Vice-President, goes before the convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars to speak peace. This is not the idiom that the VFW expects at its annual conventions, nor the one that it readily understands. So there was little chance that Dick Cheney would travel to Nashville to say that, in his considered view, it was too early to wage war on Iraq.

Yet the swingeing rhetoric directed by Mr Cheney at the Iraqi leader on Monday was lavish even by the war-mongering standards of contemporary US political discourse. There was "no doubt", he said, that Saddam Hussein was amassing weapons of destruction to use "against our friends, against our allies and against us". He would acquire nuclear weapons "fairly soon", Mr Cheney said, and even if UN arms inspectors went back to Iraq, that would not avert the threat.

It is understandable that, as the anniversary of 11 September approaches, America's never-spent anger will rise to a frenzy and its politicians will reflect that. With Osama bin Laden not caught, an alternative villain-in-chief is essential. But there was more to Mr Cheney's denunciation than this.

For more than a week, the "war party" of Mr Cheney and the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, had seemed to be in retreat. A succession of Republican grandees had emerged from retirement to warn Mr Bush about the risks of striking Iraq. After Brent Scowcroft and Henry Kissinger came, most notably, James Baker. Mr Baker was Secretary of State and White House Chief of Staff to Mr Bush's father; he masterminded the US response to the collapse of communism. As George Bush jnr's chief advocate in the Florida recount, he is the man, more than anyone, to whom Mr Bush owes victory, and he is still a player in Texas, Mr Bush's home state.

With such big guns ranged on the side of caution and Mr Bush professing himself as yet undecided, the "war party" had to mount a new offensive if it, and US threats to Iraq, were to retain their credibility. That was Mr Cheney's assignment, and he fulfilled it with characteristic aplomb.