UNMOVIC head Hans Blix visited Washington to meet with Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. They told him to "not take no for an answer," and demand to inspect whatever he liked, whenever he liked, in Iraq. They also told him to wait until the quickly-evolving UN Security Council resolution was passed before he began inspections. Blix has said that despite the talks with Iraq in Vienna, there were "loose ends" that a new Security Council resolution would resolve. The Security Council has basically agreed that new inspection rules are necessary, but there is a strong disagreement over whether the rules should be enforced by threat of force -- France, China and Russia would all like to leave the military option for a second resolution to be enacted only if Iraq proves uncooperative.

The Central Intelligence Agency has refused to provide documents on its role in Iraq to the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Committee wants to know what the CIA is doing in Iraq, and how it can be coordinated with military and political efforts. No reason was given for the refusal, but many speculate that the report would have highlighted the infighting between the Pentagon and the CIA over their activity in Iraq -- and could possibly be construed as second-guessing the President. This comes at a time when the CIA already in hot water with Congress for bungling September 11th.

The very difficult question of how to keep Iraq stable after overthrowing Saddam Hussein is still unanswered. Most agree that the eventual goal is a federal democracy, and everyone agrees that a foreign army will have to occupy Iraq for many years before the country can become stable again.

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer was asked about the Congressional Budget Office's estimate that a war in Iraq would cost $9 billion dollars a month. Fleischer agreed that the non-partisan CBO's estimate was a lot of money, and said it is more "than the cost of a one-way ticket." After a somewhat dramatic pause, he added: "The cost of one bullet, if the Iraqi people take it on themselves, is substantially less." When asked to expand on that, Fleischer repeatedly said that "regime change is welcome in whatever form it takes." He then cooled things off with "I'm not stating Administration policy, I'm stating the obvious."

UN and Iraqi negotiators agreed Tuesday on the details of the impending weapons inspections. The US announced that, as predicted by Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday, the inspections are not sufficient and that the US-Britain resolution in the Security Council will change the terms of the inspections. Iraq immediately announced that it will not cooperate with any new changes to the inspection regime. US objections notwithstanding, the inspections could begin in two weeks.