US verdict on Iraqi arms likely this week

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday he expected the United States to deliver a final verdict later this week on Iraq's weapons declaration to the United Nations.

The United States and Britain have already signalled they see holes in the declaration and warned that they are preparing to wage war if Iraq breaches a tough UN Security Council resolution to come clean on any weapons of mass destruction.

It was not immediately clear what steps Washington would take after delivering its verdict, but US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said earlier this month that the Iraqi declaration would not itself trigger a US decision on war.

The United States said yesterday Iraq would not get a second chance to fill any gaps in its declaration to the UN, a document US officials have said is incomplete. Iraq denies having weapons of mass destruction.

British officials were quoted yesterday as saying they were "very disappointed" by Baghdad's 12,000-page dossier on its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programmes, handed over to the United Nations earlier this month.

UN officials have also said Iraq's declaration failed to account for all of its chemical and biological agents. A UN resolution in November warned Iraq of "serious consequences" if it failed to comply with UN disarmament demands.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Washington's staunchest ally over Iraq, said Baghdad could still avoid war but warned that "action should follow" if it breached the UN Security Council resolution.

"Military conflict in Iraq is not inevitable. What is inevitable is that Iraq will no longer be allowed to continue threatening its neighbours and defying the UN," he wrote in Britain's Financial Times newspaper.

"Sometimes the only way of avoiding war is to be clear that you are prepared to use force," Blair said.

As UN weapons inspectors searched more sites after returning to Iraq last month after a four-year absence, Syria's President Bashar al-Assad said he was optimistic about a peaceful solution and that anyone seeking war with Iraq for the sake of war was "psychologically ill".

Assad, on a landmark first official visit to Britain by a Syrian leader, said Iraq was cooperating with the inspectors.

But Blair made clear at a joint news conference with Assad that they did not agree on how to deal with Iraq. Syria was a key partner in the US-led coalition against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War to eject Iraqi occupation forces from Kuwait.

US and British warplanes attacked air defences in southern Iraq for the third successive day yesterday in response to attempts to shoot down planes policing a "no-fly" zone, the US military said.