THERE'S nothing like a prime ministerial pessimist to put the wind up you. So it was that Tony Blair this week continued to talk up a possible war with Iraq by resorting to a bout of panic-mongering.

Mr Blair was at his gloomy best when reeling off a Cassandra-like list of what terrorists could be up to. Weapons of mass destruction posed a direct threat to British voters, he warned. We could, he implied, be fried, blown up, poisoned or atomised any day now. Or if not then, quite possibly at some time or other.

According to Mr Blair, the world is terrorised by awful possibilities, all embraced by that scary acronym, WMD. Such deadly weapons will find their way into the hands of terrorist groups unless firm action is taken now, he said. He added that if we didn't act, we could wake up to find that "terrorist groups who are complete fanatics" are in possession of WMD.

This is indeed a scary thought, and only a little more perturbing than the day we woke up to discover that George W Bush had somehow managed to wangle his way into the White House after the least wholesome election victory in American history.

Mr Blair's press conference on Monday appeared to be a fresh attempt to convince the sceptics in his own party and in the country at large, a congregation of discontent that seems to grow by the day.

Leaning down from his pulpit of doom, he said: "I tell you every single day I am faced as British prime minister with information about how these weapons are proliferating, about how states are trying to acquire nuclear capability - states you wouldn't want to have that capability..."

And so he rumbled on, building a case for a war so few people appear to believe in, and linking the American-backed campaign against Iraq with a general threat to our own safety.

The trouble is, while what Mr Blair foretells is certainly frightening, and conveyed in all sincerity, it remains a stubbornly amorphous threat. There may well be, as the prime minister warns, a "direct threat to British national security in the trade in chemical, biological and nuclear weapons". But he does not elaborate how bombing Iraq would lessen that threat.

In fact, the post 9/11 build-up to a possible war with Iraq has never satisfactorily been linked to terrorism in general or Al-Qaida in particular. This, I would hazard, is why so many people remain unconvinced about the moral imperative for a war.

The case for a war appears to amount to: President Bush wants to get even for Bush Senior's unfinished business with Saddam; and Iraq's ready supply of oil, so handy to a fuel-guzzling US whose car-bound inhabitants favour vehicles the size of tennis courts.

As the UN weapons inspectors go about their task, finding "zilch", as one inspector told the LA Times earlier this month, the suspicion grows that President Bush and his hawkish cronies couldn't care less what evidence is or isn't found in Iraq. They want a war and they want it on their terms.

Just listen to these remarks from President Bush, made during a rallying speech to troops at the beginning of this month: "...this generation of Americans is ready. We accept the burden of leadership. We act in the cause of peace and freedom. And that cause will prevail."

Well, that's a relief. President Bush is in the world's driving seat in his mirrored sunglasses and military jacket and Tony Blair is along for the ride, tentatively offering suggestions from wherever Bush has put him. The boot, in all likelihood.

Updated: 11:45 Thursday, January 16, 2003