There we were last Saturday afternoon, a crowd of hapless journalists sitting at a US Air Force Base in Maryland waiting to accompany President Bill Clinton and Air Force One to the Far East.

Our bags were already loaded on the plane but we were taking bets among ourselves as to whether we'd take off. The White House staff with us were being even more tight-lipped than usual.

What we didn't know at the time is that we were unwitting pieces in the decoy plan. On Friday night Bill Clinton had secretly decided not to go to Malaysia and given the green light for a military strike the next morning, but the Pentagon wanted to lull Saddam Hussein into believing he had more time than he thought.

Iraq's military was not ready to withstand airstrikes

Then came word that Al Gore would be going in the president's place. There was a rush for the exits and within seconds, the press contingent had shrunk from 80 to a couple of Wall Street Journal reporters.

What we also know now, but didn't then, is that shortly after 8 am that morning (1300 GMT), the president pushed the pause button on what would have been the biggest aerial bombardment the world had seen since the Gulf War seven years ago.

These strikes would have gone far beyond punishment raids. They were aimed at barracks containing the Republican Guard, Saddam Hussein's personal palace guards, command and control junctions and all the major sites known or suspected to contain components for his biological and chemical weapons. In the aftermath, someone in the administration let slip that they'd been expecting 10,000 casualties.

Prakash Shah: First to receive the message that Saddam Hussein was backing down

Saddam Hussein could hardly have cut it much finer. The first offer of capitulation came in a phone call from Tariq Aziz to the UN's Special Envoy in Baghdad, Prakash Shah, at 2:15 pm on Saturday - 1115 GMT - less than three hours before the raids were due to begin. Unfortunately, Mr Shah was having lunch with the Spanish Ambassador and didn't get the message that Tariq Aziz had called until 3 pm - 1200 GMT.

Within a few minutes, the White House was informed that the Iraqi government had made an offer, but they had nothing in writing. The UN office in Baghdad was having difficulties getting an authoritative translation of the letter from Tariq Aziz.

At 1230 GMT, 7:30 am in Washington, the president and his security advisors met and deliberated over whether to call off a military strike on the basis of an offer they had not yet seen. The B-52s carrying cruise missiles were already airborne heading towards their targets. On board the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower, the commanding officer Rear Admiral Scott Frye had already let journalists in on the plan. 'Strikes into Iraq will commence tonight," he told them.

Sandy Berger: His advice was to wait

Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defence William Cohen, and General Hugh Shelton, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were all in favour of pressing ahead. The Iraqi offer, Madeleine Albright said, was "too little too late". They pointed out that America would never again get the near unanimous diplomatic support that they had for military action this time. Even France and Russia were being privately supportive.

Intelligence reports suggested that Saddam Hussein was not expecting a strike so soon and had not taken precautionary action to protect some of the key sites. "Things weren't ever going to line up much better for a military strike than they were," one disappointed administration official told the Washington Post afterwards.

But the big drawback was that any attacks would almost certainly spell the end of Unscom. And if there was a way of getting Unscom back doing their job that would be preferable to having to contain Iraq's weapons of mass destruction with repeated intermittent air strikes. Sandy Berger, the president's National Security Advisor urged delay. The president agreed and with half an hour to go, the forces were ordered to hold their fire.

No one expects this to be the end of the story. It took Saddam Hussein just six months to break the agreement he made with Kofi Annan in February, which ended the last crisis. The next time, the White House says, there will be no warning. Military strikes will be immediate.

But that is easier to say than do. The Pentagon is freezing deployment as it stands, not sending new forces to the Gulf and not bringing any back. But to be ready to strike immediately requires a high state of readiness which is extremely wearing on manpower, morale and equipment. It would be difficult to sustain for months.