EDITORIAL WAITING FOR PROOF BUSH NEEDS TO TONE DOWN THE WAR RHETORIC.

THE latest word from Washington is that the Bush administration is willing to use ``overwhelming force,'' including nuclear weapons, should Iraq use weapons of mass destruction against the U.S., its forces or its allies.

No surprise there. The last Bush administration issued the same warning prior to the 1991 Gulf War, and America has long used its most devastating weapons as a deterrent against the most devastating sort of attack.

Thus, by raising the specter of nuclear destruction, Bush has at best stated the obvious. At worst, he has undermined the very support he needs to effectively wage the War on Terror.

The ``overwhelming force'' remark, part of a defense strategy submitted to Congress on Wednesday, doesn't come in isolation. It follows months of Bush's repeated warnings to Iraq, warnings that have grown increasingly tiresome and hyperbolic with each passing day.

There's something to be said, in diplomacy as in life, for talking softly and carrying a big stick. The big stick that might be employed against Iraq - ``regime change'' - has long been held out for all, especially Saddam Hussein, to see.

Now is not the time to issue threats, it's the time to wait and see whether Hussein plans to cooperate, or whether he intends to provoke a war.

Past history, as administration officials like to point out, suggests that Iraqi cooperation is unlikely. In all probability, Hussein will put up with weapons inspectors only until they come close to finding his illicit stockpile - at which point he will conjure up a bogus excuse for expelling them, as he did in 1998.

But it need not be that way.

The U.N. Security Council's unanimous support of the latest anti-Iraq resolution should make it clear to Hussein that if he thumbs his nose at international law again, it will be for the last time. Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but there's reason to hope that that threat will be enough to bring the Iraqi dictator around, and war won't be necessary.

One way or the other, it's too early to tell. The U.S. and its allies are still poring over Iraq's recent 12,000-page weapons declaration, and U.N. inspectors have barely scratched the surface of Hussein's potential weapons hiding places.

The jury is still out, and until it returns, calls for the executioner are both premature and dangerous.

By turning to the U.N. for its support, Bush went a long way toward earning credibility internationally and bolstering support at home. Tying Iraq's fate to the the U.N.'s findings showed that America wasn't dead-set on a war, but committed to defusing a potent threat.

The administration's escalating rhetoric, however, greatly compromises that credibility. It alienates leaders abroad and voters at home, both of whom see excessive posturing as a sign of an itchy trigger finger.

If Bush comes across as too eager to go to war, he will find that the world will be far less eager to follow him there. Each rhetorical outburst thus has the ironic effect of making war, even a justified one, all the harder to wage.

Talking loudly shrinks the big stick.

And the only one who stands to benefit from that is Saddam Hussein.