Straw calls Iraqi co-operation a charade while Blair seeks wider support for war

British Ministers believe that the progress report yesterday by the United Nations weapons inspectors increases the likelihood of military action in Iraq.

One government source said yesterday: "The report does not raise any great expectations that Saddam Hussein is serious about the inspection process. We still hope he gets the message. There is still time, but this cannot go on forever."

Downing Street says three scenarios are possible: President Saddam will convince the inspectors he has destroyed his weapons of mass destruction; he will destroy them under the supervision of the inspectors; or he will be disarmed by force.

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said the report showed that President Saddam's cooperation was a charade. Mr Straw said: "He is practising concealment. There is clear evidence now that has made this a charade of an inspection, co-operating on process but not on substance."

Mr Straw said: "Time is running out for Saddam Hussein. He has had a lot of time – 12 years – to comply fully. The time and patience of the international community, which unanimously backed the UN Security Council resolution 1441, is running out."

Yesterday, Tony Blair relaunched his campaign to persuade the public and the Labour Party to support a war in Iraq – even if the UN inspectors failed to find a "smoking gun". Downing Street changed tack, preparing the ground for military action on the grounds that President Saddam had failed to comply fully with the inspection team.

Privately, British ministers admitted they had raised too many hopes that the inspectors would find detailed evidence of weapons of mass destruction. However, Mr Blair's official spokesman insisted that under UN resolution 1441, failure to "co-operate immediately, unconditionally and actively" with the inspectors would amount to just as much of a "material breach" as a weapons find.

Downing Street said President Saddam had dispersed his weapons in recent months to thwart the inspectors. It said Iraq had to disclose what had happened to the material the UN knew it had in 1999.

Yesterday Mr Blair discussed the crisis in a 25-minute telephone call with Vladimir Putin, the Russian President. Downing Street said the leaders agreed on the need for the Iraqi regime to comply fully with its obligations, including co-operation with the inspectors. That bland statement masked growing differences between the US and other permanent members of the Security Council – Russia, China and France – with Britain, the other member, trying to stop the gulf widening.

Mr Blair will maintain his support for the US when he meets George Bush at Camp David on Friday, but will reflect the caution of other countries about military action. His much-fabled influence with an impatient Bush administration now faces its toughest test.

* Twenty students stormed the stage yesterday when Charles Clarke, the Secretary of State for Education, was about to defend the Government's higher education reforms. The protesters, mostly students from London universities, began chanting: "War on fees – not on Iraq."