Flags are being lowered, sensitive documents shredded and sandbags erected as most of the remaining foreign embassies in Baghdad prepare to evacuate the capital ahead of an expected onslaught.
The imminent withdrawal of diplomats, who have been active at every twist and turn of the Iraqi standoff with the United States, has cast a pall over the city, giving the definite impression that the talking is almost over. "We will leave before war erupts. When military troops enter, the diplomats leave," one European diplomat said.
"When they begin their job, ours end. There can't be work for both."
Nearly all embassies have been reduced to the ambassador and a skeleton staff. At one Western embassy, the ambassador answers his own phone, types his own letters and makes his own coffee.
The leading European ambassadors still in Baghdad - the French, German and Russian - have all stayed this long in the hope of a last-minute compromise to avert war.
"We will leave within 24 hours before the attack. We will stay until the last moment not to surrender to the option of war. We continue to pass on messages every day," one Western diplomat said.
The departure of the French and Germans will send a clear signal.
The point of no return will likely be the withdrawal of UN weapons inspectors who came on a mandate to avert war by finding and destroying Iraq's prohibited weapons.
Diplomats and UN sources say there are signs the 250-member inspection team may have started cutting back. Two planes are on standby ready to evacuate the team when the order comes from UN headquarters in New York.
United Nations and other relief organisations have already sent their international staff home, leaving mostly local staff to handle the operation.
Diplomats are no longer discussing prospects for war. Talk is now about the date. The US strategy, they say, is to move swiftly and start massive air bombardment of all government symbols - ministry buildings, communication centres, palaces, houses of top officials, intelligence and Baath Party headquarters.
US forces, they add, would avoid attacking the military in a message designed to encourage them to rise up and defect, a prospect that could make Saddam's resistance weaker. At the same time, special forces would thrust into the capital Baghdad to destroy Saddam's power base.
The Iraqi strategy is to play on the controversy at the UN by working on their friends and allies to abstain or veto a second resolution.
"For the Iraqis, it is very important that no second resolution is adopted because they hope that Bush will face an internal problem," one diplomat said.
"They know they cannot stop the war. Their strategy is to resist and drag American troops to fight city battles for two to three weeks. In the meantime, they hope that world-wide protests and opposition will force Bush to stop," he added.