The countdown to military strikes against Iraq was getting dangerously low last night as the United States continued to send troops to the Gulf and a defiant President Saddam Hussein held meetings with his military chiefs and the Revolutionary Council.
The US Defence Secretary, Mr William Cohen, who is touring the region trying to get permission for basing troops in countries neighbouring Iraq, said there are now sufficient US military "assets" in the area to launch an action against Iraq.
As several thousand more US soldiers travelled to Kuwait, officials with Mr Cohen said a request by regional commanders for 2,500 to 3,000 extra ground troops was being processed.
Gen Anthony Zinni of the Marines, who commands US forces in the Middle East, asked for the soldiers as a precaution to protect Kuwait against possible retaliation from Iraq to any air strike, the officials said.
An amphibious force of about 2,200 Marines is also on its way to the Gulf from the Mediterranean.
The Pentagon said six F-117A stealth fighters, six F-16 fighters, six B-52 heavy bombers and one B-1 bomber would start leaving by midweek to augment the force of more than 300 US aircraft already in the Gulf region. One senior US official, asked when the entire US force would be in place, said: "We're looking at a week to 10 days."
Meanwhile the United Nations Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, put off a visit to Italy and the Middle East, saying in New York that "the discussions and the search for a diplomatic solution have reached a critical stage". A spokesman for Mr Annan said there were as yet no plans for him to go to Baghdad, but that this had not been ruled out.
The US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, said in a speech delivered in Washington that any attack would be substantial, "not pinpricks".
"Unless Iraq's policies change, we will have no choice but to take strong measures. . .Do not doubt: we have the authority to do this, the responsibility to do this and the means and the will," she said.
Ms Albright stressed the goal was specifically to disrupt President Saddam's plans to make biological and chemical weapons. Speaking at the American Enterprise Institute after talks with the foreign ministers of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic about their plans to join NATO, she said she had secured their support for military action in Iraq.
"They all said they are ready to support us as appropriate should military action become necessary," she said. She did not say whether she meant moral, political or material support.
At the United Nations headquarters in New York, the Security Council was last night discussing Mr Annan's proposal to double the amount of oil Iraq is permitted to sell under the sanctions imposed after the 1990-91 Gulf war. The maintenance of the punitive sanctions for seven years is one of the factors which has made it harder for the US to win the support of Arab countries this time.
US and Iraqi ministers talk tough; Hussein tells Blair he will not sup- port military action: page 13