Stardate 20021116.1838

(On Screen): So of course the question of the hour is, "When will the first material breach happen, and all the diplomatic charades end?"

Will, for instance, the US take advantage of Iraqi attacks on our planes which patrol the north and south no-fly zones and use that? Not, I think, in the short run. It can be used, eventually, if nothing else presents itself, but there's political value in a greater and more obvious failure by Iraq to comply, and Saddam is telegraphing when that's going to happen.

In a letter addressed to parliament, Saddam said he had mulled the MPs' recommendation that Baghdad reject the resolution, but had chosen to allow the weapons inspectors back to undermine the United States and foil its plans for war.

"We hope that the method we have used will achieve the stated aim of those with no evil intentions in the Security Council, and that is that they know the truth as it is: Iraq is devoid of weapons of mass destruction, and they can now work on ending the embargo and the tyrannical sanctions."

In other words, it's virtually certain that the report that is due on December 8 will not actually describe what Iraq has.

Let's make clear that there can be no doubt that Saddam is lying about this. Let's be equally clear that our intelligence agencies surely know a lot about what he actually has. It's inconceivable that Saddam himself could actually tell his own rubber-stamp parliament something like this if his government was going to publicly confess to all kinds of WMD violations in two weeks, and if he does not then that will be a "material breach" of more than sufficient political magnitude to make it impossible for even the most sympathetic of neutral powers (i.e. the French) to ignore.

The charade has no more than a month left to run from now, since it will take time to select and assemble a suitable body of proof of Iraq's lies after the report is filed.