In the old days, busy housekeepers used to brush dirt under the carpet. But the modern UN has, so to speak, brushed the carpet under the debris. Outside the Security Council, where diplomats come to brief the world's media after meetings, is a huge tapestry reproduction of Guernica , Picasso's memorial to the horrors of air warfare o­n civilians.

In the old days, the o­ne UNTV camera could be guaranteed not to embarrass, say, American Ambassador John Negroponte, by backdropping his statements with images of screaming women and children, but with the world's new interest in the UN, the hordes of outside TV crews there may be less discreet.

So Guernica has joined the statue of Justice in Attorney General John Ashcroft's lobby, covered in blue drapes to hide her nakedness. Together they make a potent metaphor.

One almost wonders how long it will be before, disguised as an art project, someone wraps the Statue of Liberty in New York harbour, shrouding it from toe to torch. After all it was a gift from 'Old Europe', the French, and it promised a welcome to immigrants.

The new administration now has different ideas about the nation of Lafayette, which bankrolled American terrorists (sorry, freedom fighters) against their legitimate government back in 1776.

And as for those immigrants: the weekend's news that INS staff had been shredding visa applications and passports, while other INS staff were interning and deporting immigrants for lack of the same paperwork really sums up the merciless and xenophobic inefficiencies of the so called war o­n terror.

Nations in a fix

Today, the shrouded tapestry will be the backdrop for the diplomats who emerge from Secretary of State Colin Powell's briefing o­n the "evidence" of Iraq's failure to meet the demands of resolution 1441.

The indications are that the evidence will be tenuous and tendentious. Even US intelligence agencies are busily leaking their skepticism about connections between Baghdad and al-Qaeda, let alone between Saddam Hussein and Sept 11.

One hopes that this particular piece of the script is aimed at the American public which has shown a tendency not to be able to tell Arabs apart rather than at foreign governments. If not, we have to worry even more than we first thought about the rationality of decision making in Washington.

The rest of Powell's show-and-tell session is likely to be slightly more convincing but not dramatically so. There will be evidence that Iraq is hiding... something. But what?

It will add little to the convictions of Council members, most of whom already are pretty sure that Baghdad is being less than candid about its weapons programs.

To assure their own skeptical electorates they have to show what it is that the Iraqis are hiding and that it is a sufficiently horrifying threat for them to risk supporting military action.

Tough message

Powell, as the rational wing of the administration, must know this. The suspicion is that what he is demonstrating is not evidence about Iraq, but about the US and himself.

His message is that Washington is going to attack Iraq and there will be no more Mr. Nice Guy in the form of a reasonable Secretary of State arguing Europe's multilateral brief in the White House.

It was always plain to those who did not delude themselves that Powell was like the tortoise, offering a slower, multilateral way to war, but while it was less frenetic and more sophisticated in its approach than that of the White House hares, its destination was the same.

His message to the Russians and the French in particular is that if they want to stay relevant to the United States and they truly, deeply and sincerely do then they had better come along with it.

The message to the rest of the Council is a toughened up version of George Bush's at the General Assembly, which certainly worked then. If they do not want to risk the UN Charter being ripped up, they had better deliver the resolution they all say is necessary. It is of course bullying and blackmail. It works.

Member states can if they wish, disguise their own self?interest behind a deep concern for the UN's integrity and relevance. It would not be too surprising if France itself moved the resolution the Americans want: after all their battle over 1441 was the need for a second resolution so they can claim vindication for their stand.

They will hope for a defining excuse, such as an Iraqi refusal to allow the U2s to fly, or the failure to find an Iraqi scientist foolhardy enough to be interviewed without a secret police minder, but they may go ahead anyway.

There are also carrots for those who co-operate. The Foreign Minister of Bulgaria, which has already been the most compliant elected member o­n the Security, claims to have had assurances from the US that Iraq's pre-Gulf War debts will be honoured.

One presumes that similar offers, either of past debts to be paid, or future contracts to be offered, explicit or with a nudge and wink, have been made to other members.

Short of Saddam Hussein having an attack of lucidity and public spiritedness and stepping down, the countdown to war begins today in the chamber behind the shrouded Guernica . GVNN