Straw steps up the pressure on Saddam as UN deadline looms

Jack Straw issued a direct warning to members of the Iraqi regime yesterday not to make the "wrong career choice" by collaborating in attempts to deceive United Nations weapons inspectors.

The Foreign Secretary said in an interview with The Independent: "Don't think you can get away with hiding what the UN weapons inspectors are seeking. Don't underestimate our determination to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction [WMD]. Don't miss the final opportunity to comply."

Referring to the obligation of Saddam Hussein's regime to give full details on its banned weapons programmes by Sunday, Mr Straw continued: "He's now got five days to own up. And it would be extremely sensible from his point of view and from the Iraqi people's that he abandons the habit of a lifetime of lying and deception and begins to tell the truth."

Asked how the Western allies would be able to prove the existence of WMD, not least to their own public, if no discoveries are made and President Saddam continues to deny their existence, Mr Straw said the Iraqi leader had to account for missing chemicals and biological agents identified in a report of the inspection regime, known as Unscom, in January 1999. "The inspectors are not starting with a clean sheet, and it's important for the public to understand that. That's why the onus is on them."

Mr Straw hinted a countdown to war would not necessarily start immediately after Baghdad's response to the UN ultimatum, even if as expected it falls well short of American and UN demands for a "full and comprehensive disclosure".

Indicating that President Saddam might produce a complex and very partial admission of WMD, he added: "I would be very surprised if he produces a nil return. I don't think he's that stupid."

However Iraqi officials said yesterday that the document, which could be ready as early as today, was unlikely to contain any admission that Iraq possessed any banned weaponry. "There will be nothing surprising," the officials declared. "We have repeated our position several times that we have nothing hidden."

According to Ari Fleischer, President George Bush's spokesman, the White House will not deliver an immediate response to the Iraqi declaration, which may run to hundreds, if not thousands of pages. It may be days before the Bush administration delivers a considered judgement, perhaps accompanied by its own intelligence findings if – as seems wellnigh certain – these contradict the Iraqi claims.

The tenor of Mr Straw's warning to members of the Iraqi regime is likely to be repeated when he gives interviews to the Arab television stations al-Jazeera and NTV in Ankara, the Turkish capital, today. They partly reflect intelligence reports that officials have been ordered to hide chemicals and documents relating to WMD in their homes. He said members of the regime had to understand that "time's up for Saddam and they've got an important career choice for themselves".

Tony Blair also stepped up the pressure last night by warning Saddam he believed Iraq still possessed WMD.

The Foreign Secretary repeated that he would prefer a new UN resolution if military action became necessary but denied suggestions that the Labour Party would be split if action was taken without one. The number of Labour rebels had fallen in the latest Commons debate despite having the chance to vote for a Liberal Democrat proposal that force be used only if there was an explicit UN mandate.

Mr Straw said before arriving in Ankara: "I've always wanted this resolved peacefully and so far we have opened up a clear path for it to be resolved peacefully." He suspected that President Saddam saw the weapons "as a means by which he measures his virility" and the more he refused to comply with UN resolution 1441, which ordered him to meet disarmament requirements or face war, "the more probable is military action against him".

The US Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, who was also in Turkey yesterday, stressed that the Iraqi weapons declaration would be a vital determinant of whether a new Gulf War can be avoided. If the document did not measure up to US expectations, he added, then President Bush would have to take some "very big decisions".

Mr Wolfowitz, a leading Iraq hawk in the administration, managed to win support from a sceptical Turkey for the use of its military bases in a campaign against Iraq.

The Turkish Foreign Minister, Yasar Yakis, said after meeting Mr Wolfowitz that his country would let America use its Turkish military bases if the United Nations approved military action against Iraq in a fresh resolution.

But the price Turkey's new leaders are demanding for their co-operation is high: financial aid to offset the economic losses the country would suffer in case of a war, support for its bid to enter the EU, and guarantees that a separate Kurdish state would not emerge in the north if Saddam was deposed.

Both in Ankara as in London earlier in the day, Mr Wolfowitz insisted that war was not inevitable. Instead, Washington is telling its allies that the best hope of a peaceful solution is to keep up the military pressure on President Saddam. Iraq would only be ready to make fundamental change "if it sees itself surrounded by an international coalition", Mr Wolfowitz said.

Mr Blair, in an interview with the BBC World Service, warned that if the UN resolutions were not enforced, Saddam would see it as a "green light" to continue developing his weapons programmes.