Iraq's trade minister today announced his country had increased food rations to let citizens stock up for a possible war with the United States.
The minister, Mohammed Mehdi Saleh, told journalists supplies distributed so far should ensure everyone had a stockpile to last three months.
"And we are going to increase the quantity in the coming months so that everybody is secured in this regard," he said.
UN arms inspectors, on a mission that may prove crucial in deciding whether a war takes place, checked at least three sites for signs of weapons of mass destruction and questioned scientists at Baghdad's Technological University.
The inspectors, whose next report to the UN Security Council is due on January 9, have not taken a break for a Christmas season marked by appeals for peace from Christian religious leaders. The pressure for rapid and aggressive inspections has come from the United States, which has threatened to go to war if Iraq cannot prove it has scrapped all its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes, as required by UN resolutions.
Their final report is due by January 27. With Iraq continuing to insist it no longer has the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction, speculation is growing that the report could be the trigger for war.
Israel's military intelligence chief, Major-General Aharon Ze'evi-Farkash, told parliamentarians in Jerusalem this week that any US attack on Iraq was likely to be in early February. Relief agencies already fear a humanitarian crisis in a country damaged by over a decade of UN economic sanctions.
Saleh said Iraq had earlier this year begun giving each family double rations of basic foodstuffs - including wheat, rice, cooking oil and milk powder - every other month.
He also issued a warning to the United States: "We have taken measures to defend our country, our land and it (war) will not be a picnic....They will face hardship, difficulties and big losses if any aggression takes place and they will not achieve any objective from the war."
George Robertson, secretary-general of the trans-Atlantic NATO alliance, said he expected it to support any US -led campaign against Iraq, with or without United Nations approval. "(NATO) is very, very supportive of the United Nations process and if that breaks down, then clearly there is a moral obligation by NATO to give whatever support is required," he told BBC Radio.
So far Britain is the only NATO member to express readiness to join a US -led war in Iraq, although it has said it would prefer to have it endorsed by the UN Security Council.