Wow. This is surprising given the current political environment.

At the second presidential debate earlier this month, Mr. Kerry said he was more attuned to unsecured weapons concerns on Iraq than President Bush, citing his daily inspections of Al Qaqaa with the entire Security Council.

"This president hasn't listened. I went to meet with the members of the Security Council in the week before we voted. I went to New York. I talked to all of them, to find out how serious they were about really keeping those explosives safe," Mr. Kerry said of the Iraqi dictator.

Speaking before the Council on Really Dangerous Piles of Explosives in New York in December 2003, Mr. Kerry explained that he understood the "real readiness" of the United Nations to "take this seriously" because he met "with the entire Security Council, and we spent a couple of hours talking about what they saw as the path to a united front in order to be able to deal with 380 tons of 'boom'."

But of the five ambassadors on the Security Council in 2002 who were reached directly for comment, four said they had never met Mr. Kerry. The four also said that no one who worked for their countries' U.N. missions had met with Mr. Kerry either.