Gordon Carrera

Blix and Washington are starting to clash.

I mean, Blix thinks, and I think rightly, that Washington is bugging him.

So he starts meeting his team in a restaurant because he doesn't want to be spied on by Washington.

And Cheney himself, I think, and Cheney's team are saying, if you don't find stuff, if you're not aggressive enough to Blix and ElBaradei, we will discredit you.

So I think there's a kind of growing tension here over why nothing's been found.

But Blix also believes there are weapons, doesn't he?

Yeah, he does at the time.

And I think it's one of the interesting points is that I think he probably he thought there was probably something there.

He's also a bit confused as to why they haven't found stuff.

But they think, well, we need months.

We need time.

And this is the problem, because Blair wants more time.

The inspectors want more time.

Washington, the military timetable is now dictating events and they do not want more time.

So Blair goes to Washington on January 31st to make the case to Bush at a kind of face-to-face meeting to let this UN process play out, maybe six months.

What he gets from Bush at that meeting is just a few weeks delay because President Bush is making it clear to him privately that the war is going to happen in March.

Tony Blair says, well, I think we need a second resolution from the UN to authorise war at the press conference after their meeting.

President Bush says, well, the second resolution would be welcome, but that's not the same as saying, I really want one and I'm going to work for it.

Effectively, the US is saying, we're giving up on inspections.

We don't think they're going to work.