Powell has finger on trigger

Iraq's arms declaration was riddled with lies and omissions, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Thursday, and predicted there would be no peaceful outcome if Baghdad continued its "dissembling".

He said Iraq was in "material breach" of a UN resolution calling for it to end its suspected chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes - using a term that could provide a legal justification for military action - but suggested any US decision on going to war was weeks away.

Powell spoke after top UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said he had found inconsistencies in the 12,000-page document released by Iraq under UN Security Council resolution 1441, which demands that Baghdad end its weapons of mass destruction programmes or face "serious consequences" likely to include war.

If embraced by the Security Council, the term "material breach" could provide a legal justification for war, but neither Blix nor the council's other 14 members chose to use the phrase, suggesting Washington has some way to go to persuade the world to take military action.

However, the bare mention of the words marked another ominous turn in the continuing Iraqi crisis.

While the council agreed that the Iraq's declaration was broadly unsatisfactory, no other member was ready to back the United States in declaring a new material breach.

Even Britain, which has stood arm-in-arm with Washington on the issue, declined to utter the words.

Ministers in London have said that omissions in the text are not themselves grounds for war.

Jack Straw, the British Foreign Secretary, said that war was not inevitable, but Iraq had pulled one "trigger" and "they now have their finger on the other trigger".

Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair said Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had been playing a game of hide and seek with UN weapons inspectors.

Blair said of the Iraqi leader: "His duty is to be open and transparent about what he has."

The British leader told the Guardian: "Now he has made his declaration, if the declaration turns out to be false, then he is in breach."

Talking about reports that the British military is gearing up for war, he said: "This is all contingency planning ... for the eventuality that you find he is in breach."

Powell said Iraq had failed to fully disclose details of its weapons programmes and argued that this had brought it closer to facing serious consequences.

But he said Washington would work with the UN inspectors and consult allies over the next few weeks as it decides how to proceed.

"The Iraqi declaration ... totally fails to meet the resolution's requirements," Powell said. "Iraq's response is a catalogue of recycled information and flagrant omissions ... These are material omissions that in our view constitute another material breach."

Iraq denies US accusations that it has programmes to make biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and it has accused the United States of seeking a pretext to launch a war.

Powell said: "There is no question that Iraq continues its pattern of non-co-operation, its pattern of deception, its pattern of dissembling, its pattern of lying, and if that is going to be the way they continue through the weeks ahead, then we're not going to find a peaceful solution to this problem.

"There is no calendar deadline, but obviously there is a practical limit to how much longer you can just go down the road of non-co-operation and how much time the inspectors can be given," he added.

"This situation cannot continue."

In the meantime, Powell said "the coming weeks" should include more study of the Iraqi declaration, and UN weapons inspectors in Iraq should intensify their work and make greater efforts to interview Iraqi arms scientists outside the country.

Among the omissions that Powell cited in the Iraqi document were its failure to address suspected stockpiles of anthrax, botulin toxin, chemicals that are the building blocks for mustard gas, sarin gas and VX nerve gas, as well as information about suspected Iraqi attempts to obtain aluminium tubes that could be used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

"Most brazenly of all, the Iraqi declaration denies the existence of any prohibited weapons programmes at all," Powell said, calling the Iraqi declaration a "new lie".

Security Council resolution 1441, which gave Iraq a last chance to disarm and was adopted unanimously on November 8, has two requirements before the council can declare a material breach.

It says false statements or omissions in the Iraqi declaration have to be coupled with a failure to comply with inspections.

A senior US official described the decision to use the phrase as a turning point, saying Washington had entered a "new phase" and the next milestone would be January 27, when UN inspectors must report to the Security Council.

US officials and UN diplomats said they hoped to be briefed earlier, possibly in early January.

There have been indications from the White House that the Bush administration will be patient, letting UN arms inspections run their course in coming weeks, but the US military is forging ahead with a build-up that could have more than 100,000 troops in the Gulf region in January or February.

US officials said 50,000 ground troops were being notified to be ready to move there early next year if needed.

There are now 60,000 US troops in the region, more than half of them Navy and Air Force personnel aboard aircraft carriers and at air bases in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar.

In Baghdad a scientific adviser of Saddam Hussein said Iraq would decide whether or not to let scientists involved in its weapons programmes be debriefed abroad when such a request was made by the United Nations.

"We will cross that bridge when we come to it," General Amer Saadi said.

He said Iraq was working on the list of scientists and would provide it before the end of the month as requested by the United Nations.

Saadi said he was not sure Iraq would be required to let its scientists be debriefed abroad.

- AGENCIES

Herald feature: Iraq