All this talk about whether Saddam Hussein is dead or alive could well be irrelevant at this point.

I'm going to stick my neck out and make an audacious prediction: Saddam Hussein is alive and no longer living in Iraq and U.S. intelligence knows it.

To wit, the following report from Reuters:

The White House said on Friday it would consider military action in Iraq a success even if U.S. forces failed to find President Saddam Hussein, whose appearance on Iraqi television could prove he survived a U.S. bombing raid on the first night of the war.

While finding Saddam -- either dead or alive -- would be "helpful," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said President Bush's "definition of victory" was removing the current government from power and eliminating the country's alleged weapons of mass destruction….

"What's important in the president's judgment is that the regime be disarmed and that the regime be changed so the Iraqi people can be free and liberated," Fleischer said earlier.

"Certainly any clear resolution about Saddam Hussein's fate helps provide some clarity to that," Fleischer said. "But the definition of victory is those two factors that I cited, that the president has cited."

Egg on my face or not, that's where I stand at the moment.

[Ed.: Thanks to reader John Curran for the heads up.]