UN backing for a US-led attack on Iraq would be useful but is not necessary, President George W. Bush said, while his ally Britain stalled for time yesterday with calls for the Americans to give diplomacy three more weeks before going to war.
Meanwhile, NATO finally endorsed defense plans for Turkey in the event of an attack while the Americans put pressure on Ankara to reply over the deployment of troops on Turkish soil as NATO chief George Robertson headed to Washington for high-level talks on the crisis.
"War is my last choice, but the risk of doing nothing is even a worse option," Bush said on Tuesday.
"A second resolution would be useful," he said, but added: "It's not necessary, as far as I'm concerned."
But British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw were said to be suggesting that a crunch meeting of the UN could take place on March 14.
Newspaper reports in London said both were arguing that the delay could provide enough time to convince France and other doubters that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has failed to cooperate with UN inspectors, and that a new UN resolution paving the way to war should be approved.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell accused countries pushing for longer weapons inspections in Iraq of being "afraid" to take responsibility for a possible conflict.
NATO formally approved the deployment of defensive measures for Turkey in the event of war after being paralyzed for weeks by one of the worst splits in its history after France, Germany and Belgium refused to vote in favor.
"Alliance solidarity has prevailed," said a statement by the US ambassador to NATO, Nicholas Burns, after the decision which cleared the way for NATO to field AWACS aircraft, Patriot missile systems and chemical-biological response units for the defense of Turkey.
However the US ambassador to that country, Robert Pearson, said in Ankara that his country needed an urgent answer on deploying troops in Turkey for a possible Iraq war.
"Time is of critical importance for us," Pearson said after Turkey insisted on billions of dollars of US compensation to cover Ankara's costs due to war in neighboring Iraq.
Powell, speaking on the French radio station France Inter, said: "It cannot be a satisfactory solution for the inspections just to continue forever because certain nations are afraid of stepping up to the responsibility of imposing the will of the international community."
In Berlin, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder also said there was no need for a further UN resolution, believing there was "no reason" for war.
Speaking on German television, Schroeder said: "Right now we have to make every possible effort to resolve this conflict peacefully."
At the UN, Iraq urged the Security Council to heed the voice of millions of anti-war protesters worldwide and reject US demands to disarm it by force.
Authorizing a military attack would be "a failure of the international system as a whole" and "undermine the credibility of the Security Council," Iraqi UN ambassador Mohammed al-Douri told a council meeting which was opened to non-members.
The most powerful critique of US policy came from Iranian ambassador Javad Zarif, who warned the council that "extremism stands to gain enormously from an uncalculated adventure in Iraq."
It would be "an admission of failure by the council" to authorize war before the inspection process was exhausted, said South African ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, who requested the meeting.
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