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The dinner between one of Saddam Hussein's closest aides and Hans Blix was meant to smooth the thorny path for the renewed United Nations weapons inspections.

Notice, that Blix has yet to meet with Saddam himself. You would think that with such a grave issue, that the head of the nation would want to meet with the person who gets to decide the nation's fate.

Such is the scale of information the UN is demanding, Iraqi officials told Mr Blix's team they may have difficulties meeting the 8 December deadline by which they must submit a detailed report.

Of course, it takes a long time to write "zero" on a tally sheet. Or are they truly not in compliance? [nudge, nudge, wink, wink]

The Iraqis, led by General Husan Amin, asked for "further clarification" of the terms of the US-sponsored UN resolution.

Clarification? All...it's spelled A-L-L. Is that clear enough for you?

UN officials were perturbed by criticism of Mr Blix, a 74-year-old former Swedish foreign minister, by right-wingers in America.

I'm sorry - I just don't have confidence that the Muppet's Swedish Chef can coordinate an effective search for WMD in Iraq. Call me crazy. And as far as I'm concerned, the UN "officials" are on thin ice to begin with.

An Iraqi Foreign Ministry official said: "This shows it is the Americans who are against the UN inspections, not us. They are trying to find pretexts to stop the mission and bomb us."

No, we're tired of playing games, want to do away with this charade and bomb you. It's just a little bit different.

Inspectors have destroyed more weapons here than the bombs have.

To paraphrase Samuel L. Jackson in "Jackie Brown": "Nuclear warheads. When you've got to kill every last mutha-f***** in the room, accept no substitutes!"