Hans Blix and hundreds of UN arms inspectors may be preparing to return to Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction but there is one team of inspectors which has never left.
At the port of Umm Qasr, in a bleak desert of the demilitarised zone which separates Iraq from Kuwait, inspections are being conducted around the clock as part of the UN's oil-for-food programme.
A team of five inspectors ensures that the contents of the many ships which arrive at Iraq's only port on the Persian Gulf contain the humanitarian supplies needed by Iraq since the imposition of UN sanctions following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
"It's tough work," said an inspector in one of the portacabins at Umm Qasr where the team shelters from the harsh climate.
"We're not looking for weapons so we tend to be forgotten about. But what we do is equally important."
The programme has provided Iraq with over £20 billion sterling (€31.43 billion) worth of food, medical supplies and water sanitation equipment since it began in 1996, in exchange for Iraqi petroleum.
"If Hans Blix wants to see a model of co-operation between the UN and Iraq, I suggest he looks at the work that's being carried out at Umm Qasr," said the inspector. It has been pivotal in alleviating the serious humanitarian crisis inside Iraq created by the UN sanctions and the effects of a war-torn economy.
Mr Barges Hmoud al-Barges, a spokesman for the Kuwait Red Crescent Society, said: "It's because they've been doing so much good work at Umm Qasr that they did not leave at the same time as Hans Blix's team in 1998 when this whole current crisis began. I just hope they will be able to continue doing their work if a war does break out between America and Iraq," he said.
The oil-for-food programme has, however, not been without its problems, underlining the huge task facing Mr Blix and his team if and when they are allowed to rejoin their colleagues in Iraq.
Although no weapons have been found by the team at Umm Qasr, the smuggling of contraband goods occurs on a "regular basis", according to one of the officers who helps patrol the demilitarised zone around the port with the UN Iraq Kuwait Observation Mission.
"Armed gangs of tobacco and alcohol smugglers operate throughout southern Iraq," said the officer. "And if there are problems accounting for everything which is happening in a small port town where a humanitarian operation is being carried out, it will be almost impossible to accurately inspect the range of military sites to be found in Iraq.
"Unfortunately, I suspect that is just what the Americans want."