Foreign diplomats in Iraq are leaving the country as the United States and Britain start a final diplomatic push to rally support for a possible war.
The Polish diplomat who acts as Washington's sole representative in Iraq, Mr Krzysztof Bernacki, will leave on Wednesday "for long consultations in his country," the Polish embassy said.
Other diplomatic sources in Baghdad said the representatives for Yugoslavia and Spain had already gone, citing the same reason.
The departures came as Washington and London exerted pressure on reluctant US allies to support a new UN resolution that would underpin a military assault on Iraq.
Faced with the growing threat, Iraq has said it is prepared to meet the demands of UN weapons inspectors, who have been trying to secure Baghdad's agreement on overflights by US spy planes and private interviews with Iraqi scientists.
Chief UN weapons inspector Dr Hans Blix is due to go to Baghdad at the weekend for talks after Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, Mr Mohamed Al-Douri, said Iraq now had "no objection" to the use of U2 surveillance aircraft.
But US President George W. Bush has warned that Iraq had "weeks, not months" to prove to UN inspectors it had no weapons of mass destruction, and insisted that he was ready to order a war and invasion if it did not do so.
On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Colin Powell is to present the Security Council with US intelligence purported to show Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has links to al-Qaeda and is hiding weapons of mass destruction.
Iraq's ruling Baath Party predicted that Powell's speech would be "made up of lies and fabrications" designed to justify a conflict and urged the Security Council members to "not give in again to American blackmail".