As President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair prepared for crisis talks in mid-Atlantic, Britain said yesterday that a US-led war on Iraq was increasingly likely -- and maybe just days away.
"The prospect of military action is now much more probable," Blair's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said.
The White House said the summit in the Azores with Spain today was no council of war but a last chance for diplomacy after other Security Council members rebuffed the trio's repeated efforts to win a clear UN mandate for an invasion.
But diplomats at the UN said Washington's swift rejection of a proposal by Chile to break the impasse on another resolution indicated that UN negotiations were all but over.
Adam Ingram, Britain's armed forces minister, agreed the world may be just days from a conflict. "I think that language which has been used over recent days in London would lead us to that conclusion," he said in Athens in answer to a question.
A quarter of a million American and British soldiers are massed around Iraq, in the Kuwaiti desert, air bases and warships, ready to unseat Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Their generals would rather fight now than in mounting summer heat.
Straw told the BBC that Saddam could still avert war by a "last-minute" compliance with UN demands to disarm -- though Baghdad insists it is already meeting those requirements.
Keen to widen splits in the Security Council, Iraq gave the United Nations on Friday what Baghdad called "reliable evidence" that it had destroyed all its stocks of VX nerve gas. It said it would supply a similar report on anthrax soon, though few diplomats expect Iraq's arguments to sway Washington and London.
Yesterday, Iraqi technicians went on with the UN-ordered destruction of al-Samoud 2 missiles.
Bush and Blair will be joined by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manual Durao Barroso at the Lajes US air base on Portugal's Azores.
Bush, Blair and Aznar have been trying for weeks to build a nine-vote majority on the 15-nation Security Council for a resolution paving the way to war. Blair in particular is keen for clear UN backing to assuage anti-war sentiment at home.
But despite arguing, arm-twisting and apparent inducements such as Friday's move to lift US sanctions on Pakistan, only one other nation, Bulgaria, has publicly declared its support.
Veto-wielding France and Russia, along with Germany, have led counter-arguments that the UN inspections process to disarm and contain any threat from Saddam is working.
Some UN diplomats say the Azores summit may decide to withdraw the resolution rather than risk the humiliation, and legal complications, of seeing it voted down.
Bush has that said he needs no UN backing for a war he portrays as defensive and that, even if he did, last year's Resolution 1441 warning of "serious consequences" is sufficient.
A proposal by Chile, one of six uncommitted council members, which sought to give Iraq three more weeks to disarm, was quickly dismissed by the White House as a "non-starter".
In Iraq, thousands took part in government-organized marches to show their support for Saddam. "Bush, Bush, listen well; We all love Saddam Hussein!" marchers in Baghdad chanted.
Peace marches were expected in several countries. More than 3,000 people rallied against war on Iraq in the Thai capital Bangkok yesterday. In Washington, anti-war crowds were expected to surround the White House later in the day.
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