But by then, the first missiles were slamming into their targets in Baghdad. The meeting was postponed just as on Capitol Hill, a reluctant Republican House leadership was announcing that the vote, too, would be put off until the military operation was over.There remained only one task for the President - to deliver his address to the American people, which he did at 6pm, 24 hours after the first public indications of the crisis.. NOT NORMALLY the most cheerful of locales, the United Nations Correspondents' Association club in UN headquarters in New York was seething on Tuesday evening. At 3.12pm, the first Tomahawk cruise missile took to the air, the first volley in Operation Desert Fox. Its travel time was calculated at one hour 54 minutes.At 5.30 pm, the President had been scheduled to meet with another Republican wavering on impeachment, Christopher Shays of Connecticut. His conversations directly reflected the dichotomy of his personal drama He talked not just about Iraq but also about impeachment.

In the early afternoon, he spent nearly an hour in the Oval Office with Amo Houghton, a Republican moderate from New York who was still planning to oppose impeachment.President Clinton's last meeting with his security team happened at 1pm, Washington time The final order to launch the attack was given. President Clinton held a 7.30am meeting with his security advisers in the White House situation room. Afterwards, he began preparing the address, which he knew he would be delivering on television that evening to inform the American people of the strike.With every spare minute, Mr Clinton worked the phones talking to law- makers on Capitol Hill. An attack on Iraq, the on-air correspondents gasped, appeared to be imminent.So began a truly remarkable day. In New York, the UN Security Council met on and off all Wednesday to agonise over a crisis it knew it could do nothing to avert. Just when all national attention had been focused on the President's domestic plight and the vote to impeach that everyone believed would happen on Thursday in the House of Representatives, a whole new drama had burst forth.

He did not go directly to bed, but stayed up until 1.30am to telephone congressional leaders to inform them of the plan.On Wednesday morning, the breakfast-time television news broke the astonishing news. Mr Butler had confirmed what they had feared all along - President Saddam was once more in violation of his obligations to the UN. Three hours into the flight, Mr Clinton placed a telephone call to No 10 Downing Street to confer with the Prime Minister, Tony Blair And the decision was made. The President gave the order for his forces to prepare for an imminent bombardment of Iraq.It was just before midnight on Tuesday in Washington when the clatter of helicopter blades announced the arrival of the President from Andrew's Air Force Base in Maryland where minutes before his aircraft had landed.

The President's wife, Hillary, and daughter, Chelsea, sat in another cabin, separated from the momentous discussion by a bulkhead.All at the meeting were agreed. Around the small conference table, seated in cream leather chairs, the President, Mr Berger, and the Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, pondered their choice. Joining the conversation by secure telephone link from Washington were Mr Gore, George Tenet, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Mr Cohen. When Mr Butler's report finally made its journey from Mr Annan's office to the Security Council and its contents were leaking into the news wires, Mr Clinton was on his flight bound for home.