Global Policy Forum

By Philip Webster

TONY BLAIR will today urge President Bush to stick to the United Nations route to disarm Saddam Hussein and to avoid the temptation to go it alone. He will tell Mr Bush at their Camp David summit that he believes a second United Nations resolution can be secured based on Iraq's failure to co-operate fully with the weapons inspectors. The Prime Minister flew to Washington last night confident that world opinion could be rallied behind a second resolution, despite growing misgivings over the weapons inspectors' inability to find "a smoking gun" incriminating Saddam.

But even as Mr Blair spoke to journalists on his plane, Europe was engulfed in recriminations over yesterday's article by the Prime Minister and seven other European leaders implicitly attacking France and Germany's opposition to US policy on Iraq.

It emerged that neither President Chirac of France nor Germany's Gerhard Schrí¶der had been asked to sign the article, which appeared in The Times. Its publication caused anger and dismay in Paris and Berlin. The Dutch Prime Minister refused to sign it lest he widen Europe's divisions. Greece, which holds the European Union's rotating presidency, criticised what it described as a right-wing move to block EU efforts to forge a common position on Iraq.

Last night, in an apparent attempt to ward off war, Iraq invited UN disarmament chiefs to return to Baghdad for fresh talks on co-operation. But in Washington Mr Bush made his impatience plain. He said that the diplomatic process could not be open-ended and the issue of disarmament would have to be resolved in "weeks, not months".

Mr Blair, in a key test of his influence with the President, will use their few hours together today to urge him to stay with the United Nations, arguing that Resolution 1441 will open the way to a second resolution backing force. Speaking before a stopover in Madrid for talks with José Marí­a Aznar, the Spanish Prime Minister, he appeared to concede that the inspectors might not find damning evidence of Saddam's chemical and biological weapons because of his "active policy of concealment". But he said that Saddam's failure to comply with demands that he co-operate with the inspectors would be enough.

Later, at a press conference with Señor Aznar, he rammed home the message that force might be necessary to disarm Saddam — but with UN backing. He said: "The point I am making is that if the process of disarmament cannot happen through the UN inspectors then it should happen with the full authority and consent of the UN through force. That is the only alternative to a failed inspections route."

He emphasised that UN resolution 1441 demanded full co-operation from Saddam. He added: "Obedience to that resolution or the lack of it will determine any military action and the timing of it." Mr Blair and Mr Bush will decide today how long they think the inspectors should be given to conclude that Saddam is not co-operating.

Mr Blair has been urged by Democrat leaders to persuade Mr Bush to show restraint. Asked if that was the intention of his talks, he said: "It is not a question of leverage or of pushing the Americans to do something they do not want to do. We have an agreed strategy on this which is a strategy of getting a resolution through the UN laying down a clear commitment that if he breaches it we have a further discussion and a new resolution issues. I believe that the international community will follow through what was agreed in Resolution 1441.

"We anticipated that if there was a breach we would come back and have a further discussion. The implication of that was that if Saddam Hussein was in breach we act and in the end that is where the international community should be."

Mr Blair said that he was not setting an arbitrary time limit, but hinted that he did not think it should take too much longer. He restated Britain's view that Saddam was already in breach but he said it was a judgment for the UN. He said the Iraqis were following an active policy of concealment and insisting that scientists were interviewed at Iraqi headquarters in the presence of Iraqi minders.

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