"To those bad people we say clearly if they imagine that the beating of war drums would push Iraq to make concessions on its national rights and what has been written in the UN charter and relevant Security Council resolutions, they are wrong," said an official spokesman in a statement following a cabinet meeting chaired by President Saddam Hussein.

"If they imagine their evil pressure may push Iraq to accept the unacceptable, including a new UN Security Council resolution, they are wrong also," the official Iraqi News Agency quoted the spokesman as saying.

The defiant statement by the Iraqi cabinet came as the United States and Britain are engaged in a joint diplomatic offensive to win the support of France, Russia and China, the other three permanent members of the UN Security Council, for a draft new resolution against Iraq.

The proposed UN resolution will reportedly set a seven-day deadline for Saddam to accept all its demands and then open all suspected sites, including his palaces, to international weapons inspectors.

The tough demands are coupled with a warning that "all necessary means," including the use of force, would be applied against Iraq if it fails to come into line.

Iraq has been under sweeping UN sanctions since its August 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the embargo will not be lifted until the United Nations has verified that Iraq has eliminated all of its weapons of mass destruction and means of launching them.

Continuous spats about alleged espionage activities between Iraq and the UN arms inspectors, who were commissioned to verify that Iraq has eliminated its weapons of mass destruction, led to crisis in 1997 and 1998, and eventually the brief air war against Baghdad from Dec. 17-19, 1998.

In an official letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Sept. 16, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said his government is ready to accept the UN weapon inspectors unconditionally.

(Xinhua News Agency October 2, 2002)