"I hate war. Every sensible person does. But sometimes it is the right thing to do," he told reporters at his Sedgefield constituency in northern England, promising convincing evidence soon that Iraq was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.

"Iraq poses a real and unique threat to the security of the region and the rest of the world. Saddam Hussein is continuing his efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction. Confronted with this reality, we have to face up to it and deal with it."

Many British newspapers embraced the rhetoric with relish.

"War will not wait" splashed the tabloid Sun on its front page, while the Daily Mail trumpeted "Blair lights the fuse."

The right-wing broadsheet Times joined the chorus with a front page headline "Everything points to war with Iraq."

"The elimination of Saddam's ambitions in this theater is in Britain's national interests," it added in an editorial.

Blair, who has twice taken his country to war -- in Kosovo and Afghanistan -- in just five years in power, said there was no realistic alternative to removing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"Either the regime starts to function in a completely different way -- and there's not much sign of that -- or the regime has to change," he said.

"This is an appalling, brutal, dictatorial, vicious regime...the people that would be most delighted if Saddam Hussein went would be the Iraqi people."

SALESMAN FOR WAR

But Blair is facing an uphill struggle with an opinion poll this week showing 71 percent of Britons were against the country joining any United States attack on Iraq without the blessing of the United Nations.

"The important thing...is that the U.N. has to be the route to deal with this problem, not a way of people avoiding dealing with this problem," he said, suggesting a bid to get U.N. approval but hinting the wait would not be indefinite.

The left-wing Guardian newspaper -- in an oblique reference to World War II -- dubbed Blair's speech the Battle for Britain and said he had made a poor case for war.

Blair said no decision had been taken -- either in London or Washington -- on action against Baghdad, but insisted that he was fully behind US President Bush's increasingly belligerent stance on the "axis of evil" nation.

"The policy of containment as it exists now cannot be continued effectively," he said. "It simply can't."

The Daily Telegraph newspaper said Blair, who adopted the role of global salesman for Bush's "war on terror" after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington last year was assuming the mantle yet again for a strike against Iraq.

"Blair will demonstratively use his good offices to bring round the German and French leaders, thereby gaining prestige in Washington," it said in an editorial, adding that Blair had now irrevocably tied his future to that of Bush.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said London's priority is to get weapons inspectors back into Iraq.

But Blair said Baghdad's record of frustrating U.N. arms inspectors from 1991 until they left in 1998 meant the world would need convincing they will able to do their job properly.

"Weapons inspectors should go back in unconditionally. Any time, any place, anywhere under a weapons inspection regime that really makes a difference," he said. "If the Iraqis refuse then we have to find a different way of dealing with it."

(China Daily September 4, 2002)