Global Policy Forum

By Ian Black, Richard Norton-Taylor, and Julian Borger

The Bush administration reacted with rage last night to a Franco-German initiative to extend arms inspections in Iraq, portraying the plan as a thinly disguised attempt to derail the US timetable for war.

With relations between the three nations plummeting, leaders on both sides of the divide made no attempt to hide their growing contempt. Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, called on Paris and Berlin last night to study the UN resolution which they had backed. "What France has to do and what I think Germany has to do ... is read 1441 again."

The Franco-German plan, revealed at the weekend, would triple the number of UN weapons inspectors and back them up with surveillance flights. One unconfirmed report said thousands of UN troops would be sent into Iraq to support the inspectors.

The emergence of the plan just days before the US is expected to press the case for military action at the UN was greeted with unalloyed anger by the White House. To heighten the sense of irritation, Berlin said it would put the joint plan before the security council on Friday, just hours after the chief weapons inspector, Dr Hans Blix, is to present his crucial report.

Colin Powell swiftly dismissed the initiative: "I don't think the next step should be 'Let's send in more inspectors to be stiffed' [deceived]. Tripling the number of inspectors doesn't deal with the issue. This idea of more inspectors, or no-fly zones, or whatever else may be in this proposal that is being developed is a diversion, not a solution."

The Franco-German plan threatens to be a serious complication for Washington, which wanted Friday's security council meeting to pose a single question: was Saddam Hussein disarming or not?

US and British diplomats would then propose a second resolution that would represent a mandate for military action. The unexpected third option muddies the water.

To make matters worse, from Washington's position, Russia last night backed an extension of time for the UN weapons inspectors. Speaking after a meeting with German Chancellor Gerhard Schrí¶der, Russian President Vladimir Putin said: "We are convinced that efforts for a peaceful resolution of the situation regarding Iraq should be persistently continued."

US anger was compounded by the fact that the first it knew of the initiative was in a report in the German news magazine Der Spiegel. France insisted the plan was neither new nor secret, but rather an extrapolation of last week's call by Dominique de Villepin, its foreign minister, for extra inspectors backed by spy planes.

The transatlantic mood was ugly even before news of the plan emerged. On Saturday Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, clashed publicly with Joschka Fischer, Germany's Green foreign minister, when both men were attending an international security conference in Munich.

Mr Rumsfeld, a leading US hawk, said it was not surprising if public opinion in Germany and France was opposed to war in Iraq if their governments were.

Mr Fischer lashed back: "You have to make the case in a democracy. Excuse me, I'm not convinced."

British sources quickly rejected the Franco-German move. "We don't buy this idea," said a senior official. "It's the wrong approach. What we need is cooperation on substance by the Iraqis."

The clash between America and what Mr Rumsfeld has disparagingly dubbed "old Europe" will boil over today at a crucial Nato meeting which threatens the future of the alliance. A very public split has opened over a US request to prepare for the defence of Turkey against an Iraqi attack.

France, Germany and Belgium are all poised to block moves to send Patriot missiles to Turkey by issuing formal objections before the decision takes effect this morning. George Robertson, the Nato secretary-general, called the bluff of the three last Thursday, hoping they would succumb to peer pressure from Nato's 16 other members.

But the gamble seems to have failed and diplomats in Brussels said they were resigned to a new crisis for the alliance.

Mr Rumsfeld rebuked the three for what he called "inexcusable" behaviour that was "beyond comprehension".

"The problem now," one gloomy diplomat said last night, "is that things are getting personal."

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