you know, there is political stalemate here. they re trying to form a new government. he ll meet with all the contenders, the rival forces, political forces of coursal maliki and alawy and the iraqi president. of course, iraq is his portfolio. the vice president has been designated by the president to be in charge of coordinating iraq policy. he meets regularly with all of the players. and as we all know, there s a lot of dispute over the staging of the drawdown, the surge in afghanistan, the pace between the two wars. so this is a key moment for him to reassess the situation on the ground. there was extraordinary secrecy associated with the travel plans. we were not allowed to say we were going. we were not allowed to say where we were at any stage. we re still not able to say until after he s left the location where exactly we are. and there s only a small number of us. there is a television pool. i m the only tv correspondent on