The put-down could not have seemed more calculated. Barely had Hans Blix, who leads the United Nations' special inspectorate for Iraq, announced in Vienna on October 1st that agreement had been reached on practical arrangements for the return of inspectors, than America's secretary of state, Colin Powell, was telling the world that, without a tough new UN resolution, neither Mr Blix's inspectors nor those of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who have the job of checking whether Iraq is developing nuclear weapons, were going anywhere. "We will not be satisfied with Iraqi half-truths or Iraqi compromises or Iraqi efforts to get us back in the same swamp," said Mr Powell, referring to Saddam Hussein's past practice of blocking the inspectors at every turn. Which leaves the whole problem to be tussled over once more at the UN Security Council.
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