U.S. set to demand that allies agree Iraq is defying U.N.

Washington - Bush administration officials said today that next week they would confront France, Germany and other skeptics of military action against Iraq by demanding that they agree publicly that Iraq had defied the United Nations Security Council.

The officials, expressing exasperation with the refusal of longtime allies to back the United States, said they were vigorously debating whether to seek a second United Nations resolution authorizing force against Iraq. At the least, they said, they will insist that the nations opposed to the American position acknowledge that Iraq has not complied with resolutions on its weapons of mass destruction.

In Paris, President Jacques Chirac of France and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany proclaimed their unity on the matter. "We both want a peaceful solution to the crisis in Iraq, and we will work toward that in close cooperation," Mr. Schröder said today.

The Pentagon, meanwhile, announced that more than 20,000 members of the National Guard and Reserve had reported for active duty this week. The activations brought to nearly 79,000 the number of National Guard members and Reservists called to active duty for possible service in the Persian Gulf or in the United States. A total American military force of 150,000 is expected in the region by mid-February.

Administration officials said their strategy was based on the belief that there might never be a "smoking gun" proving Iraq's possession of illegal weapons. Accordingly, they acknowledged that the case must be made in a negative fashion: that Iraq has failed to disprove the contentions of the United States and others about its weapons of mass destruction. The administration asserts, without offering evidence, that Iraq has thwarted inspectors by hiding the weapons.

Questioned today about recent polls indicating that Americans are having second thoughts about a war, President Bush condemned the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein.

Labeling him "a dangerous, dangerous man with dangerous, dangerous weapons," the president said in St. Louis that "if Saddam Hussein will not disarm, the United States of America and friends of freedom will disarm Saddam Hussein."

Some administration officials expressed the belief that France and other reluctant allies, accepting American military action as inevitable, would be won over in the end — perhaps out of concern that their businesses might lose any role in exploiting Iraq's oil. Others said the French might ease their resistance if the United States allowed the inspectors a few more weeks.

But some were skeptical of those arguments, saying that the French ought to be taken at their word, and that Mr. Bush should not bother to seek a second resolution condemning Iraq and authorizing the use of force.

In another sign of their irritation with American allies, aides to Mr. Bush said they were intensifying efforts to line up support elsewhere in Europe and would try to portray France and Germany as holdouts against a quick Security Council indictment of Iraq. Officials said today that support was forthcoming not only from Britain but also from Poland, Spain, Italy and others.

If anything, Americans officials said, the recent French and German appeal for American patience has backfired — emboldening the hawks in the administration and even spurring Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to tell aides that he would accept military action against Iraq without approval from the Security Council.

Mr. Powell has resisted that position for months. Sounding tougher today than he has, he said on the PBS program "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" that the question was whether to allow Iraq "a few more weeks, a few more months" to comply when it was clear already that it would never do so.

"Frankly," he added, "there are some nations in the world who would like simply to turn away from this problem, pretend it isn't there."

Mr. Powell's comments appeared to be a direct rebuttal of the call for a delay of two or three months by the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, with whom he has talked frequently — some said tensely — since the weekend.

Going further, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld dismissed the German and French roles in a newly expanded NATO, which has been asked to provide indirect assistance for an Iraqi invasion.

"You're thinking of Europe as Germany and France," Mr. Rumsfeld told foreign journalists at the State Department, as leaders of the two countries today solemnly celebrated the 40th anniversary of their treaty of friendship in Versailles, France. "I don't. I think that's old Europe." He added: "You look at vast numbers of other countries in Europe. They're not with France and Germany on this. They're with the United States."

The Iraqi situation appeared today to have been thrown into some turmoil by the French and, to a lesser degree, by the German rejections of American policy on Monday — and by the publication of polls showing a drop in the number of Americans supporting a war, and a vast majority of Americans opposing action without the support of allies.

Administration officials said that although both Mr. Chirac and Mr. Schröder had called on the United States to slow down its move toward war, the comments of their foreign ministers on Monday at the United Nations were surprisingly vehement.

France had called for the special United Nations ministers' meeting on Monday, ostensibly to discuss terrorism, and many American officials expressed the opinion that Foreign Minister de Villepin had somehow set Mr. Powell up and surprised him with the vehement remarks.

Asked by Mr. Lehrer if he felt "sandbagged" by the French, Mr. Powell replied, "Well, I wouldn't say `sandbagged' is the word." But he said it was "unfortunate" that Mr. de Villepin transformed a meeting on terrorism into a forum on Iraq.

The administration is now planning to focus on the report that the United Nations weapons inspections chief, Hans Blix, is to issue on Monday — in the hope that it offers details on Iraq's noncompliance. That could result in a fresh United Nations demand that Iraq come clean and dismantle its weapons.

Noting today that French officials have in the past stated publicly that Iraq has those weapons and has failed to comply with the resolutions, officials said the Bush administration believed that France and Germany could somehow be embarrassed next week into repeating that acknowledgment. "Our goal is to rub their nose in reality, and then proceed to discuss what we do about it," an official said, referring to France. "We want to create a situation where they have to respond to the obvious facts and then explain why they don't want to act on them."

American officials said one alternative strategy would be for the United States to seek a Security Council resolution only if France agreed to abstain rather than veto. France has not vetoed a resolution favored by the United States since a 1976 dispute over the Comoros Islands, off the coast of Africa.

"We haven't given up on the United Nations process," one administration official said. "We'll just have to see what happens."

On the subject of delay, Mr. Blix seemed more deferential to the American position today than he did last week, when he made calls for a prolonged inspections process. Asked whether time was running out on Iraq, he told reporters at the United Nations that that was up to the Security Council to judge.

He added that if Iraq were truly cooperating with the inspections, there would be no reason for delay.

Another element in the administration's strategy is to make the Blix report a major element of President Bush's State of the Union message on Tuesday.

Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, notes in an op ed article in The New York Times on Thursday that many other countries besides Iraq have been asked to disarm and have readily done so. -- New York Times

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