US President George W. Bush braced the nation on Saturday for a possible war with Iraq, saying it must be prepared to act if the UN Security Council backs down.
"The United States, along with a growing coalition of nations, will take whatever action is necessary to defend ourselves and disarm the Iraqi regime," Bush said in his weekly radio address.
Bush consulted by telephone with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a key ally on Iraq, about stepping up diplomatic pressure on the Security Council, as top UN weapons inspectors began crucial disarmament talks in Baghdad.
Bush said he would welcome a new UN resolution that backs up the demands of the one the Security Council approved in November warning of serious consequences if Iraq did not give up its suspected weapons of mass destruction.
"Having made its demands, the Security Council must not back down when those demands are defied and mocked by a dictator," Bush said..
In preparation for a possible invasion, warplanes participating in an American-British patrol over the "no-fly" zone in southern Iraq dropped 480,000 leaflets on Saturday saying the US did not wish to harm Iraqi civilians, the US military's Central Command said in a statement.
Citing evidence presented to the United Nations by Secretary of State Colin Powell, Bush said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had never accounted for a vast arsenal of deadly biological and chemical weapons, and was pursuing an "elaborate campaign" to conceal them from UN inspectors.
Bush, who spent the weekend at the Camp David presidential retreat, accused Baghdad of "actively and secretly" attempting to obtain equipment needed to produce nuclear weapons, and said Iraq had at least seven mobile factories -- mounted on trucks and rails to evade discovery -- to produce biological agents.
"The Iraqi regime's violations of Security Council resolutions are evident, they are dangerous to America and the world, and they continue to this hour," Bush said.
Citing unidentified sources, he said the Iraqi leader had recently authorized his field commanders to use chemical weapons, and accused him of having "long-standing, direct and continuing" ties to terrorist networks, including al Qaeda.
He said Iraq sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al-Qaeda, and provided the group with training in chemical and biological weapons. In addition, he said members of a group affiliated with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has had contacts with al-Qaeda, had been operating freely in Baghdad.
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