US: With US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declaring that US forces are now ready to attack Iraq, the Bush administration is stepping up diplomatic efforts to finalise and marshal support for a joint US-British resolution at the UN to endorse the use of force.
The US strategy is to "reach out" to individual countries on the 15-member Security Council to get the nine votes necessary to pass a resolution, and then to challenge France, Russia and Germany to veto the will of a majority, UN diplomats said.
The resolution is likely to find Iraq in material breach of its disarmament obligations but is not now expected to include a deadline for compliance, which the British government wanted. The absence of a deadline would mean war could come any time after a vote, expected in early March.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell told German television that he "wouldn't expect the resolution itself to have a timeline, but time is running out".
"An argument can be made, and it's an argument we would make, that resolution 1441 provides more than enough authority" to use force, he told the BBC.
"Right now, this next resolution need not say 'military action' to provide the authority for the use of force if that's what is decided is appropriate."
Mr Powell dismissed recent Iraqi concessions to the UN as of little consequence. "Much was made last week of Saddam Hussein's issuing a decree telling everybody to turn in or have nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction," he said. "Now that we've read the decree, we see that it applies to private citizens, and not to the government."
Negotiations on the text of the resolution will form part of the discussions at the President's Texas ranch between Mr Bush and Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, who has supported US-British policy.
The White House has promoted meetings and discussions with leaders from countries that might make up a "coalition of the willing" against Iraq, partly to underscore that the US is not acting unilaterally.
In recent days Mr Bush has met British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Australian Prime Minister John Howard. He plans to meet President Heydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan, which has publicly backed Bush's call for Iraq to disarm.
The chief UN weapons inspector, Dr Hans Blix, will make a routine report on inspections to the five permanent council members at the end of next week, under a 1991 UN resolution requiring quarterly reports, and then appear before the council for questioning the following week. The resolution will not be put to the vote until after that, diplomats said.
Mr Rumsfeld told public television in the US: "We are at a point where, if the President makes that decision [to attack\], the Department of Defence is prepared and has the capabilities and the strategy to do that."
Asked if the US was ready to go to war now, he replied, "Yes."
The US and Britain have deployed more than 150,000 military personnel in the region.
Mr Powell said yesterday before leaving Washington for a trip to Asia that he hoped war could be avoided, "but the one who has the power in his hands to decide whether there will be a war or peace is Saddam Hussein".
If the Iraqi President complied with the UN demands "or if he leaves the country tomorrow" there would be no war. "The problem is he has shown no signs of leaving the country and he still shows no signs of complying."