US increasingly isolated

Washington shrugged off growing vocal opposition to a possible war on Iraq as big powers lined up to reject military action.

China and Russia, as well as Canada, joined France and Germany yesterday in opposing any rush to war.

They said UN weapons inspectors should be allowed to continue efforts to disarm Iraq by peaceful means.

Washington dismissed the objections, saying it would find other supporters if it decided to go to war.

"I don't think we'll have to worry about going it alone," US Secretary of State Colin Powell said in Washington after talks with Britain's supportive Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

He also said it was an "open question" whether Washington would seek a further UN resolution to authorise the use of force to disarm Baghdad. Other US officials make clear they see no need - and given the French, Russian and Chinese veto powers on the Security Council, they are unlikely to get one.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told US President George W. Bush in a telephone call the key to future action on Iraq would be found in next Monday's report by UN arms inspectors.

The experts have spent two months searching for evidence of nuclear, chemical and biological arms that Iraq denies having. They are due to present their findings to the Security Council but have already said they need more time to finish their work.

In Berlin, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder vowed he and French President Jacques Chirac would do all they could to avert war. "War may never be considered unavoidable," he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said there were no grounds for force at the moment. "There is still political and diplomatic leeway to resolve the Iraq issue," he said.

China said its position was "extremely close" to France's. Washington accuses Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of hiding banned weapons since the 1991 Gulf War and has threatened to attack if Baghdad does not disarm in line with 12 years of UN resolutions, the last of them passed in November.

The stand taken by Paris, Beijing and Moscow means a majority of the five veto-wielding permanent members on the Security Council are against war. The other two permanent members are the United States and its strongest ally Britain.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer dismissed France and Germany's opposition saying it was "their prerogative... to be on the sideline" if they so chose.

Fleischer said other countries that might support a US-led strike on Iraq included Britain, Italy, Spain, eastern European nations and Australia, which dispatched a troop ship toward the Gulf yesterday in case they are needed.