Gordon Carrera

Yeah.

So there's all this tension.

The UK has got a source inside Saddam's special security organization talking about how they're going to stymie the inspectors and keep them away from things.

But that's actually standard behavior because as we know, the special security organization

thinks the inspectors are spies gathering intelligence for war and they're trying to protect Saddam.

So that's the problem.

So by the time you get to the end of January, Tony Blair is in real trouble.

Because he'd been hoping that either there might be a coup to topple Saddam.

Sounds familiar from recent events in Iran, doesn't it?

Always easy.

Just count on the coup.

No, he hasn't got his coup.

Or he thinks maybe Saddam will just give up all his weapons and therefore we might not need a war.

Because Saddam will just decide to disarm, which of course, as we know, he can't do because he hasn't got them.

And then Blair is thinking, well, the other option is the UN is going to find stuff, and that will help me justify the war that's coming, or he's going to block the inspectors, and that will help me justify the war, and it's not happening.

And the inspectors are saying, well, we need a few more months to come to the answers.

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.