In the United Nations, meanwhile, U.N. chief arms inspector Hans Blix said there was no evidence from aerial photos or other sources that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction or is trying to build them. But he added there are still "many open questions" about Iraq's weapons programs that need to be answered.

He urged Iraq to allow U.N. inspectors back and reiterated that if Baghdad cooperated fully with inspections he could recommend that the Security Council suspend sanctions within a year.

Ambassador Sergei Lavrov of Russia, Iraq's closest U.N. ally, said all 15 council members agree that "the speedy return of inspectors to Iraq is in everybody's interest, including the Iraqi population and including the interests of regional security."

But he said Russia is "against ultimatums in principle."

Speaking to reporters after a closed-door council meeting on his latest report, Blix said satellite photos show that Iraq has carried out rebuilding at sites that were bombed in 1998, "but this is not the same as saying there are weapons of mass destruction."

"The satellites don't see through roofs," he said. "So we are not drawing conclusions from them, but it would be an important element in where maybe we want to go to inspect and monitor."

Washington accuses Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of harboring terrorists and possessing weapons of mass destruction. US President Bush said he hasn't yet decided whether to attack Iraq but he insists that Saddam must be removed from power.

Regarding the current standoff with the United States, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said: "We categorically believe that the aggression on Iraq is an aggression on all the Arab nation."

Speaking to reporters in neighboring Jordan, he said: "It is the right of all the Arab people, wherever they are, to fight against the aggression through their representatives and on their soil ... by all means."

His remarks came less than 24 hours after Foreign Minister Naji Sabri, speaking in Baghdad Monday night, said: "We do not want to fight anybody, we do not hope that a war is waged against our country. We'd like to live in stability. We'd like to live in peace."

He said Iraq was hoping to revive the trade ties it enjoyed with the United States before Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. The United States led the 1991 Gulf War that forced Iraq out of Kuwait.

Both Britain and Italy expressed strong support for the United States.

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said preventive military action was legitimate if Baghdad doesn't change its ways.

"Either things change or it will be necessary to act concretely, with all the diplomatic and political means possible, and without excluding the military option, to protect global security from a true danger," he said in a letter to the daily Il Foglio, which was to publish it Wednesday. The letter was quoted by the Italian news agency ANSA.

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said Tuesday that Saddam Hussein must disarm or face military action.

"Let it be clear that he must be disarmed. Let it be clear that there can be no more conditions, no more games, no more prevaricating, no more undermining of the U.N.'s authority," he said.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, joined European nations in saying the United States should work through the United Nations to contain any possible Iraqi threat.

President Bush's administration, trying to build world support as it considers military action to oust Saddam, says debate among its allies has shifted from a question of whether the United States should confront Iraq to how.

Bush said Tuesday he will ask the United Nations "to deal with the problem."

"I'm deeply concerned about a leader who has ignored the United Nations for all these years, refused to conform to resolution after resolution after resolution, who has weapons of mass destruction," Bush said .

Arab nations have staunchly opposed any military action against the Iraqi leader, saying it would throw the Middle East into turmoil. The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said an attack would lead to the dismemberment of Iraq, but suggested Riyadh would follow the U.N.'s lead.

"If there is an operation, the decision has to be taken by the United Nations," the Saudi minister said in Paris after meeting French President Jacques Chirac.

Leaders from Italy, France, Spain, Denmark and the Netherlands denounced Saddam in exceptionally blunt terms this week, saying he poses a threat with his alleged drive to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. But the leaders suggested Washington first seek U.N. backing for any action.

(China Daily September 11, 2002)