In Moscow, meanwhile, Iraq's ambassador to Russia dismissed rumors Saddam Hussein might go into exile to avoid war and said the Iraqi leader would "fight to the last drop of blood" to defend his country.

Concerns war is imminent have mounted, with the United States and Britain announcing the dispatch of thousands more troops and weapons to the Persian Gulf region because of misgivings about Iraq's commitment to abandon weapons of mass destruction.

Iraq insists it has no such weapons and maintains that claims to the contrary by Washington and London are simply a pretext for war.

"The aggressors in Washington and London are preparing for a devastating aggression against ... the people of Iraq, and they would like once again to destroy the City of Peace (Baghdad) as they did in 1991," Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told a visiting South African delegation Wednesday.

Aziz said U.N. arms inspectors, who returned to Iraq in November after a four-year hiatus, had strayed beyond the search for weapons of mass destruction.

"They are searching for other information about Iraq's conventional military capabilities, the Iraqi scientific and industrial capability in the civilian area, and also espionage questions," Aziz said.

U.N. spokesman Hiro Ueki denied those allegations and said U.N. officials had received no formal complaint from Iraqi authorities about alleged espionage.

The United States has accused Saddam of stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and says it will use force if necessary to disarm him. Iraq insists it has destroyed its biological and chemical weapons and halted its nuclear program and the making of banned missiles. There have been no known instances of serious problems encountered by the inspectors since they began work Nov. 27.

Nevertheless, the pace of the US-British buildup has accelerated. The American battle staff that would run a military campaign against Iraq is beginning to assemble at a command post in the small gulf state of Qatar, US officials said.

Tens of thousands more combat forces are scheduled to flow into the region over the next few weeks. Some US soldiers landed Wednesday in neighboring Kuwait, but US officials refused to say how many or identify their units.

Among the other forces expected to deploy from US bases in the next several days are F-15E and F-15C fighters and B-1B bombers. Still, US and British officials insist war is neither imminent nor inevitable.

As the buildup continues, US warplanes struck Wednesday against air defense communication sites between the cities of Al Kut and An Nasiriyah. The US Central Command said the attacks occurred after Iraqi air defense forces fired anti-aircraft artillery at US planes patrolling the southern "no fly" zone and Iraqi military aircraft entered the zone.

On Monday, US planes targeted two Iraqi military radars near the city of Al Amarah. Iraqi officials said two people were killed and 13 were injured in Monday's attacks.

Meanwhile, the official Iraqi News Agency said Saddam held a third day of meetings Wednesday with military and militia commanders, encouraging them not to fear a technologically superior foe.

"In aerial combat, there is a disparity in weapons, but on the ground, men fight with their guns and it's enough for the men to have bombs, bullets, a loaf of bread, water and a gun," Saddam was quoted as saying. As long as Iraqi forces receive the support of the people, "the enemy will be defeated," Saddam added.

With tensions rising, Philippine Foreign Minister Blas Ople said Arab governments were trying to convince Saddam to step down and go into exile. Ople, speaking to reporters in Manila, said he learned of those efforts by Arab ambassadors whom he refused to identify.

The German newspaper Tageszeitung said Russian officials had been in Baghdad since November evaluating chances of Saddam stepping down. In a report for publication Thursday, the newspaper said Russian President Vladimir Putin would send a special envoy to Baghdad to finalize details if Saddam appeared willing to accept the Russian offer of exile.

Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency quoted an unidentified "high-ranking Russian official" as denying that Moscow was working toward Saddam's departure, saying there were "no grounds for the Iraqi leader to request political asylum anywhere, including in Russia."

Iraq's ambassador to Russia, Abbas Khalaf, told the Interfax news agency that Saddam will not leave his country and will "fight to the last drop of blood."

Khalaf called reports that Saddam might leave the country "absolute nonsense" and "part of Washington and London's psychological war against Iraq," Interfax said.

(China Daily January 9, 2003)