US President Bush said today the US would confront the danger of "catastrophic violence" posed by Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction.
Assessing the past year and outlining future challenges in his weekly radio address, Mr Bush also vowed to turn an anemic US economic recovery into sustained growth and to prosecute the war on terror with "patience, focus and determination."
Speaking a month before UN arms inspectors submit a report on their hunt for banned weapons in Iraq and as the US continues to build up forces in the Gulf, Mr Bush called Iraqi President Saddam Hussein a danger to his neighbors and to world peace.
Despite a lack of concrete evidence of Iraqi involvement in attacks against the US, including the September 11th hijacked plane assaults, Mr Bush linked his anti-terror campaign to disarming Saddam.
"The war on terror also requires us to confront the danger of catastrophic violence posed by Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction," Mr Bush said. "If he refuses, then for the sake of peace, the US will lead a coalition to disarm the Iraqi regime and free the Iraqi people."
A unanimous UN Security Council resolution passed last month gave Baghdad a final chance to reveal all details of its weapons programs, as required by resolutions stemming back to the 1991 Gulf War - or face US-led military action.
"The burden now is on Iraq's dictator to disclose and destroy his arsenal of weapons," Mr Bush said in the radio broadcast from the family ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he is spending the New Year's holiday.
Iraq has denied having any nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, but the US says it has intelligence proving otherwise. Baghdad has offered to let CIA agents direct the arms inspectors to suspected sites.
The 100 or so inspectors - whose predecessors left in 1998 after Iraq halted cooperation - are to issue their next report on January 9th and a final one on January 27th amid growing speculation that this could be the trigger for an attack.
US officials said the drive to rid Saddam of banned weapons was entering a closing phase but that Mr Bush had made no final decision to use force. Still, the US continued to build up its forces in the region ahead of a possible war.
Yesterday, the Pentagon placed two aircraft carriers on alert for possible use in military operations against Iraq.