World leaders from Stockholm to Sydney responded with condemnation of Baghdad or calls for caution after UN weapons inspectors issued their report on efforts to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.
Britain joined the US in denouncing Saddam Hussein for failing to cooperate with the inspection process, and indicated that time for action was drawing close.
But other Security Council members -- most importantly Russia, China and France, who hold the same veto power as Washington and London -- said the inspections should continue for several weeks, if not months.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Iraq was in "material breach" of its UN commitments -- the phrase widely seen as a trigger for war.
"The time is up for Iraq to comply. As of today, according to the reports we've received, Iraq is in further material breach" of UN resolution 1441, Straw told BBC radio yesterday.
The resolution requires that Baghdad declare its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs and cooperate with steps to disarm. Iraq says it has no weapons of mass destruction.
UN inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei on Monday gave a mixed assessment of the first 60 days of inspections, which resumed following a four-year break. Blix said Iraq had provided access to inspectors but had not genuinely accepted its responsibility to disarm.
Britain and Australia are the only nations besides the US to have sent troops to the Persian Gulf region to prepare for possible war with Iraq.
In the Middle East, the prospect of US-led war prompted a wave of protests as thousands of Arabs burned US flags and effigies of US President George W. Bush.
Yemeni security officials said tens of thousands of protesters converged on the capital, San'a.
"The Zionist American and British war is because of oil, it is oil that makes those vampires salivate," said Abdallah al-Ahmar, Yemen's Parliament speaker and head of the Islamic Reform Party.
Demonstrators also protested in front of UN offices in Syria, Egypt and Bahrain Monday.
Lebanese demonstrators staged a sit-in outside the US Embassy in Beirut, while 10,000 Sudanese protesters were stopped by police from marching on the US Embassy in Khartoum.
Outside UN headquarters in New York, more than 300 protesters demonstrated against a possible war in Iraq, chanting "people united stop the war."
In Germany, about 3,000 people protested outside the US consulate in Frankfurt, while hundreds more gathered in downtown Dresden and in Berlin.
In his report to the Security Council on Monday, Blix, who heads the hunt for biological and chemical weapons programs, said Iraq had not fully accepted the UN resolution demanding that it disarm.
His nuclear inspection counterpart ElBaradei said there was no evidence so far that Iraq was reviving its nuclear program and said inspectors needed a "few months" to complete the search.
Many leaders appeared to agree. Jordanian Information Minister Mohammad Affash Adwan said the inspectors should be allowed to finish their mission in Iraq.
Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul said the responsibility to avoid war lay with Iraq, but called for a new Security Council resolution before any military action.
"It's very important for us," said Gul, whose predominantly Muslim nation is a close US ally.
Norway and Canada's leaders both echoed calls for more time, while New Zealand called on Baghdad to cooperate more fully with UN inspectors.
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