HAS THE WAR ON IRAQ gone political? Already? One day before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began its hearings to discuss the coming war in Iraq, the committee's chairman, Senator Joe Biden, shared with reporters some of what was said in his consultations with top officials in the Bush administration. Biden said he would be "surprised if there was any [military intervention] in the near term, meaning between now and the first of the year." No big news there--that's the emerging conventional wisdom in Washington these days--but his next comment was striking. "I even went so far as to ask if there were any October surprises," Biden said, "and I was told, 'No, no October surprises.'"

Predictably, the media hyped that bottom line: no October surprise. The headline was splashed across newspapers around the country and dominated television news. The noteworthy part of the exchange, however, was not the answer, but the question. After all, could Biden have reasonably expected to hear, "Yep, we've got it teed up for October 27, right before the midterm elections"?

Words matter. And the presumption behind Biden's question is clear: President Bush would consider committing troops to boost Republicans politically. Although Democrats on Capitol Hill had been whispering their concern that Bush might try to distract voters from his economic troubles by attacking Iraq, no one had dared raise this possibility aloud. Until Biden.

But by asking the question and revealing the (meaningless) answer to the world, Biden has created a political environment in which it will be more difficult for the administration to launch an attack before November--even if military considerations called for one. If the White House, citing national security, launched an attack in late September, Washington would explode with speculation about a "wag-the-dog" scenario. And while some of that would have happened even without Biden's "No October surprise" declaration, such second-guessing about political motivations would be greatly intensified.

Administration sources have generally been pleased with the way Biden has handled his role as the Senate's key foreign policy Democrat. And while the White House sent no representatives to last week's congressional hearings, it supported that public airing of the "Iraq issue" and has indicated that top national security officials will likely attend the next round. But some say that simply by raising the "October surprise" scenario, Biden has injected politics into the coming debate over the war.

"It's a sad day when President Bush is held to a standard of irresponsibility that Bill Clinton set," says an administration official, suggesting that Clinton used airstrikes in Sudan to distract the country from his Monica Lewinsky ordeal in 1998. "Just because Clinton did it doesn't mean Bush would."

Administration sources insist that the president has not decided on the timing of an attack on Iraq, and that military intervention before November remains on the table. "It's a logical and responsible assumption that if circumstances warrant, he would do what is needed to be done in order to protect us," says a Pentagon official with knowledge of planning on Iraq. "There's nothing I've seen to suggest it'll be before November, but we certainly can't rule that out, either."

"The president has said all along that all options are on the table," says White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. "This is not the type of administration that runs around telling people about the timing of military action."

Some members of Congress--both Democrats and Republicans--have reservations about intervening militarily in Iraq at all, and there is a strong sense on Capitol Hill that the White House should consult with Congress before any offensive. At the same time, many Democrats, including Biden, have voiced support for removing Saddam Hussein. Biden even says there is "unanimity on one thing: If Saddam is still around in five years, we've got a problem."

If removing Saddam is in the national interest, as Biden suggests, shouldn't military considerations--rather than political ones--determine the timing of any attack? Among those strategic considerations is a coming change of leaders in Turkey. Elections there are set for November3, and some say waiting until after that could jeopardize the deal struck last month between Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and ailing Turkish prime minister Bulent Ecevit--basically, debt forgiveness for use of military bases.

On the other hand, the weather would seem to argue for a later attack date. Military planners say the intense desert heat, combined with the likelihood of troops' wearing heavy gear to protect from possible chemical and biological attacks, would increase the difficulty of launching an assault involving ground troops before December.