[maquiladora]

Thats what I was thinking. The meeting in the Azores doesn't make much sence. The 3 leaders already agree on what needs to be done, so there's no diplomatic wrangling there, and the meeting is only going to be 60 minutes long! Why couldn't they have a conference call?

I figure they will present a deadline, outside the UN, a deadline from the coalition of the willing, a joint deadline that will give Saddam 72 hours to give up. This will give the press and inspectors time to leave too.

[GraniteStateConservative]

The point of this meeting is to make Blair look like an equal partner in this. It makes it look like Blair is a world leader to be able to make the Leader of the Free World show up on his side of the Atlantic to finalize something as important as this. Blair deserves whatever bones we can throw his way. They've called him Bush's poodle in the rags in the UK. This kind of looks like Blair is throwing a bone to Bush and Bush is returning it to Blair. It's a very small price to pay.

[rwfromkansas]

The meeting is only 60 minutes? Wow. It seems maybe something interesting will happen tomorrow....

[Robert_Paulson2]

We may be experiencing a bio attack as we speak, of an undefined, incurable pneumoniac plague... the positioning of key control and command of the three nations in charge, makes perfect sense to me.

[WOSG]

Meeting makes a lot of sense, think about Yalta, Teheran, in the WWII. It's a way to clarify what we need to do now that UN diplomacy has failed, it a way to clarify what the 'coalition of the willing' wants, and make the war goals clear and unified.

I am very encouraged by the noises from UK that MadIvan is posting. In particular the 'war by wednesday'. it tells me that the 'coalition of the willing'has made the STRATEGIC DECISION TO DISARM IRAQ BY FORCE.