The US sought on Tuesday to dispel speculation of an imminent military onslaught against Iraq, where President Saddam Hussein accused a "power dizzy" Washington of wanting to destroy the world.
Saddam, accused by US President George W. Bush of being part of an "axis of evil" seeking weapons of mass destruction that could be made available to terrorists, urged European countries to try to make Washington see sense.
"America does not only want to destroy the world, but rather as a result destroy itself, too," Saddam said in a meeting in Baghdad with Austrian far-right leader Joerg Haider. "When the Americans reach the position of power they suffer from power dizziness and instead of ruling on the basis of wisdom they use force," said Saddam, who survived in power despite the defeat of his armed forces by a US-led alliance in the 1991 Gulf War.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell told a Senate committee Washington wanted to oust Saddam from power but had no plans for military action against him.
"The president does not have before him right now a plan for a conflict with anybody," he said. "With Iraq, we are always examining options for regime change .... But we are not at some point where we are going into contingency plans to invade Iraq."
USA Today newspaper reported that Bush was laying the groundwork for an onslaught against Iraq.
It said Vice President Dick Cheney, due to make a tour of the Middle East next month, would try to line up support from allies in the Middle East. But asked about the report, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said: "No military action is imminent. ... No decisions are made."
General Tommy Franks, head of US forces in Afghanistan, said at the end of a visit to Kuwait that the issue of a possible US strike on Iraq had not been discussed.
"We had no discussions about basing, staging or in fact any discussions about any operations in Iraq," he told a news conference.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Iraq was becoming more dangerous as the years went by without UN arms inspectors in the country.
"It seems to me that every year that goes by and the inspectors are not there, the development of their weapons of mass destruction proceeds apace, bringing them closer to a time when they will have those weapons developed in a form that is more threatening," Rumsfeld told a briefing.
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