Germany should not participate in a possible pre-emptive strikeagainst Iraq, said the German leader to the RTL television station.

US Vice-president Dick Cheney said at a gathering of veterans on Monday that an intervention in Iraq was "inevitable" even if the Iraqi government agreed to let UN weapons inspectors in.

Schroeder has repeatedly said Germany would not be involved in a US-led war against Iraq. He ruled out the possibility that Germany would provide financial aid to such an attack.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said Tuesday that Cheney's remarks were "very risky and false." He again warned thata strike against Iraq would lead to a collapse of the anti-terror coalition.

German Defense Minister Peter Struck also disagreed with Cheney's hard words on Iraq, saying he could not and would not follow "the goal the highest circle of the American government pursues."

The plan of the United States to oust Saddam Hussein with military means contradicts international law, he stressed. There has been no evidence all along that Saddam Hussein protects international terrorists or owns atomic weapons, said the minister.

"Iraq is not a threat to us," he said.

Meanwhile, US ambassador in Berlin Daniel Coats rebuffed Germanleaders' criticism of America's Iraq policy and tried to play downdifferences between the two allies.

"Our wish is that we retain a united front to keep the pressure on Saddam," he told a local newspaper on Tuesday. "We are part of a family. Sometimes family members think differently, but they don't break asunder," said the ambassador.

(Xinhua News Agency August 28, 2002)