Military action against Iraq appeared inevitable - and possibly imminent - last night after Baghdad sent a belligerent and uncompromising message of defiance to the United Nations and the US. Iraq said it would not comply with UN Security Council resolutions and co-operate with weapons inspectors.
The White House ruled out negotiations with Iraq, the Defence Secretary, Mr William Cohen, warning that the US was no longer "playing games" with President Saddam Hussein.
In Baghdad, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Tariq Aziz, gave one of the most uncompromising statements of his long political career. Speaking at a hastily arranged news conference, he explicitly acknowledged that the Iraqi regime was preparing for war and blamed the US and Britain for pushing the crisis towards the inevitable conclusion of military conflict.
"It is not Iraq that is the problem here, it is the United States," said Mr Aziz. "Iraq wants to end sanctions. Iraq wants a better life for its people but it is Washington which is pursuing war. We are ready to confront them," he said.
"We don't see any light at the end of the tunnel . . . There is a tunnel after the tunnel," he said.
Mr Cohen, while ordering B-52 bombers and F-117 stealth fighter jets to the Gulf region, said that any military strikes against Iraq would be "significant".
"They will be significant should they be carried out," Mr Cohen said. He added that he had not seen anything coming out of Baghdad that would indicate President Saddam Hussein was "interested in complying with Security Council resolutions".
As if to confirm this, Mr Aziz said there was no question of the Iraqi government going back on its decision to break off all co-operation with the UN's weapons inspectors. He described the inspectors as "CIA spies and agents of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad".
The Secretary-General of the UN, Mr Kofi Annan, who last February negotiated the inspection agreement that the Iraqi dictator has now broken, returned to New York last night from a disrupted trip to North Africa, saying he had no plans to return to Baghdad to try to broker a new agreement.
Mr Annan will meet UN Security Council members today. The Council will be reluctant to support a visit to Iraq by Mr Annan. Mr Peter Burleigh, US representative at the UN and this month's Security Council president, said that "the ball is in the Iraqi court" when asked about a possible trip by Mr Annan to Baghdad.
Meanwhile, Senator Richard Lugar, an influential member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said that any US military action should be geared to getting rid of President Saddam.