Dear Mårten, begun. And this is my first trembling typing on a brand-new Dell computer equipped with Windows 98.

I and my Swedish assistant, Torkel Stiernlöf, Dimitri Perricos from Vienna and Åke Sällström from FOA (Swedish Defence Research Institute) met at the visitors’ entrance of the UN. We were received by the head of UN (United Nations) security, my future secretary (Olivia Platon from the Philippines). She has been with the former UNSCOM chairmen, Ekéus and Butler, before me. There was also the head of the UNSCOM/UNMOVIC administration, Mrs Alice Hecht. They escorted us up to the thirty-first floor of the Secretariat building, where UNSCOM has had its premises and where UNMOVIC is now taking over. I walked around and said hello to everybody. I was horrified to see that people almost sat on crates in minuscule areas! It was so crowded. If this is a ‘skeleton’ staff, how would it be when we are fully staffed?