Removing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is the best way to ensure that Iraq disarms and any new UN resolution on Iraq must contain a threat of force, US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said.
|
Mr Powell also did not rule out a move to drive the Iraqi President from power, even his country co-operates with weapons inspections.
However, two key UN Security Council permanent members remained unconvinced. Russia dismissed a "propaganda furore" surrounding the British report and France said it still had not seen proof to back its allegations.
"The US continues to believe that the best way to disarm Iraq is through a regime change," Mr Powell said. "Pressure has to be maintained on Iraq until the UN is satisfied that he has got rid of these weapons or allowed inspectors in to make sure of that - that's the only way to do it - and then we'll see whether or not that's adequate or whether more action is needed," he said.
The US is expected to draft a new resolution on Iraq within days. The resolution is expected to warn Iraq that it will be hit by military strikes if it does not fully comply with inspections.
On the issue of "regime change", the British government says only that it could be a desirable consequence of disarming Iraq, and is not a primary objective. "The objective which we seek is the disarmament of the Saddam Hussein regime," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said. "It may be that a consequence of that process will be regime change. "It may be that a means to achieve that process is regime change, but in terms of the objective it is disarmament," he told BBC radio. Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak flew to Saudi Arabia to meet Crown Prince Abdallah for a last-ditch diplomatic effort to avert war.
Iraq has dismissed as "lies" British Prime Minister Tony Blair's dossier which accused it of harbouring chemical and biological weapons while seeking to acquire a nuclear capability.
US Secretary of Defence Mr Donald Rumsfeld, who discussed Iraq with other NATO defence ministers in Warsaw, said his meeting was "going very well indeed". Spain called the U.S. presentation at the meeting "very interesting and convincing". Defence Minister Federico Trillo said: "We now expect action by the United Nations and perhaps a new resolution."