After the Azores summit, diplomats at UN headquarters in New York will fill its corridors this morning knowing that today almost certainly sees the last act of a tense, fraught and sometimes bitter six-month drama over disarming Iraq.
The long and detailed work of the weapons inspectors is suddenly at an end, leaving a bitter taste with UN inspection officials who have seen their role questioned, their integrity sometimes impugned and their work ultimately cast aside by Washington.
At the UN, the Azores summit was watched with dismay but hardly with surprise by chief UN weapons inspector Dr Hans Blix. In an implicit criticism of the US, he later told Swedish television it seemed to end with a divided message. "On the one hand, President Bush seems to be talking mainly about how to liberate Iraq and make sure they have no weapons left there, while Blair and Aznar, on the other hand, are giving more weight to having a last chance to unite the world and give Saddam an ultimatum," he said.
The inspectors' work is still proceeding in both Baghdad and New York but the operation is winding down fast. Dr Blix is finalising a report on the remaining disarmament tasks required of Iraq, which was due on March 27th and which he will give to the Security Council today or tomorrow.
In the circumstances, it is unlikely that Dr Blix, head of the UNMOVIC inspections team, and Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, will take up an invitation to visit Baghdad this week.
Iraq's Gen Amir Saadi, President Saddam's adviser on disarmament, invited them to come urgently to "examine ways to accelerate co-operation between Iraq and the two organisations in all areas, notably in verifying questions" still outstanding. Iraq also submitted a new list of scientists involved in past chemical weapons programmes.
Dr Blix said he didn't consider the Iraqi proposal a last-minute "stunt". However, "we're in a different situation now, we are the servants of the Security Council, we would need to know what we would achieve by going there. I don't preclude it but many other things are happening."
In Baghdad, the number of weapons inspectors, once over 100 strong, is down to 70 and an evacuation flight has been readied for Wednesday. Five of the eight UN helicopters have been withdrawn to Cyprus because the insurance company refused to provide continuing cover.
It is also doubtful if the Security Council will meet tomorrow at ministerial level as requested by France, Germany and Russia, or if it will consider French President Jacques Chirac's new proposal of a 30-day deadline for Iraq to disarm.
US-French relations have been poisoned by the Iraq issue. US Vice-President Mr Dick Cheney heaped scorn on the French yesterday. It was "difficult to take the French seriously and believe that this is anything other than just further delaying tactics," he said.
Mr Cheney enumerated what he called a series of French roadblocks on Iraq disarmament: "The French have consistently, in 1995, for example, refused to find him in material breach. In '96, refused to criticise Saddam Hussein for what he was doing to the Kurds. In '97, refused to block the travel of Iraqi intelligence officers. In '98, declared Saddam was free of all weapons of mass destruction. In '99, refused to support UNMOVIC, the very institution now they want to entrust this important responsibility to."