The Bush White House is hell-bent on war. Anything in chief UN weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed El Baradei’s report to the Security Council that did not support a US attack was going to be dismissed out of hand. Washington had no interest El Baradei’s conclusion that, so far, his team has uncovered no evidence that Iraq had revived its nuclear weapons program. Washington does not care that the UN inspectors cannot substantiate claims that Baghdad bought uranium from Niger.

It was much more to Washington’s liking when Blix warned that recent reluctant Iraqi cooperation needed “sober assessment”. The luckless Blix however went off the United States’ preferred script when he asserted yet again that the inspection teams still need months, not weeks or days, to conclude their work.

Hardly had the two inspectors finished speaking than US Secretary of State Colin Powell was back on his feet, grinding out the familiar litany that Saddam Hussein’s regime had a history of non-compliance and could not be trusted. He was heard by foreign ministers from around the world who, for the third time in a month, had gathered in New York in the hope of influencing the Bush White House. For all the effect they are likely to have, they might as well have been mosquitoes dancing around the head of a rhinoceros.

Saddam Hussein of course was no help. Baghdad chose yesterday of all days to suspend (it said only temporarily) its destruction of its illegal Al-Samoud 2 missiles. The regime has argued that if it is to be attacked, why should it destroy part of the means of defending itself? Sensible though this may appear, it is dangerous nonsense. What Iraq really has to do is stop playing games with the UN.

It could be that Baghdad knows that if it really comes clean and produces all the personnel and records that the UN weapons inspection teams are demanding, it will be found to have flouted the will of the UN so outrageously. The United States will still feel that it is entitled to attack, if only to enforce regime change. Saddam and his henchmen therefore calculate that they might as well be hanged for a sheep as a goat. It is a recipe for disaster, and the bitter dish it will create will be force-fed to the luckless Iraqis, long before it is rammed down the throat of Saddam himself.

It is the essence of all diplomacy, whether it be between states or individuals, that demands are never made in such a way that the other side does not have an escape route, some way of giving in but not losing face.

George W. Bush has no time for such subtleties. Saddam has to go. The desert spring is advancing and harsh summer is not far off. His soldiers are keyed up. A high state of battle readiness cannot be maintained indefinitely.

Therefore all the diplomats and foreign ministers assembled so anxiously in New York have effectively brought ping-pong bats to what is going to be a bare-knuckle fight. Catastrophe, for the UN, for the fight against international terror, for the Iraqi people and for Middle East as a whole, and ultimately probably for the George W. Bush White House as well, is on the way. And nothing now is likely to stop it.