Saddam astride a ticking bomb

Barring the most dramatic events in Baghdad, war against Iraq now seems inevitable, perhaps within a month.

In a host of developments, Pentagon officials said 113,000 US troops were already in the Gulf region, on course for the target by February 15 of 150,000 - the generally accepted minimum number for an attack.

A key fighting unit, the 101st airborne division with 20,000 men, was yesterday ordered to deploy to the Gulf.

Geoff Hoon, the British Defence Secretary, told the House of Commons the UK was quadrupling its air strength in the Gulf to around 100 aircraft and 27 helicopters, roughly the size of the force assembled for the 1991 war.

Britain has already committed 35,000 troops - including a quarter of its Army and its biggest naval task force in 20 years - for a possible conflict.

In Ankara, the Turkish Parliament gave Washington permission to upgrade an unspecified number of bases and ports in the country that could be used in a war on neighbouring Iraq.

On February 18 it will hold a second vote, which is expected to approve the deployment of American troops. This would, in effect, permit a second invasion front, sought all along by the Pentagon, to bear down on Baghdad from the north.

Amid the preparations, the timetable is becoming clear.

Despite assurances that US forces, with their colossal air power and sophisticated night-fighting capabilities, could undertake a war in any season, the Pentagon would vastly prefer to fight in the relative cool of late winter or early spring.

Nor, for political reasons, can the operation be pushed back a year to early next year. By that time the presidential primaries will be in full swing.

A war of self-defence is one thing. For President George W. Bush to launch an unprovoked war a few months before he comes up for re-election is quite another. To all intents and purposes it is now or never.

Secretary of State Colin Powell spelt it out for the umpteenth time this week. "We are reaching the endgame; it is a matter of weeks, not months," he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

He brushed off the French proposal - backed by Russia and others seeking more time - for a big increase in the United Nations inspection force.

"Two or three times as many inspectors would be useful," Powell said with chilly politeness. But it was up to Iraq to come clean, not for the inspectors to find banned weapons.

Powell warned Security Council waverers not to play a "double game". All 15 council members, he declared, "knew what they were getting into" when they unanimously passed 1441.

In reality, say US officials, France holds the key: if President Jacques Chirac signals he will veto a second resolution, then Bush will not seek one, and proceed with his "coalition of the willing" to disarm Iraq.

France has not ruled out the use of force as a last option, and has even sent the carrier Charles de Gaulle to the eastern Mediterranean. But it defied Washington again this week by combining with fellow sceptics Germany and Belgium to hold up for another week Nato defensive planning measures in the event of a US-led war.

Powell may conclude the French are bluffing - that ultimately they will not dare use a veto which would not stop a war, but shatter the credibility of the UN. But if the US and Britain do press a second resolution, there will be no repeat of the seven weeks of haggling that preceded 1441.

By the start of next month the US will have up to 250,000 troops in the region. Assuming Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is still not complying, the Pentagon will be ready to go. At that point, only a coup against Saddam or a decision by the dictator to go into exile could prevent a conflict.

For Bush to call off war in any other circumstances would be hugely difficult for a President who has built his image on straight talk and "meaning what he says".

In short, war seems inevitable - by mid-March probably and possibly sooner. Strategic surprise is no longer possible. But the US could achieve tactical surprise by going in earlier than Saddam expects.

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Herald feature: Iraq