Bush: Saddam ignored 'final chance to disarm'

George Bush accused Saddam Hussein of "utter contempt" for the United Nations last night, saying the Iraqi leader was systematically deceiving the international community.

In some of his most uncompromising language yet, designed to prepare his country for war, President Bush said Saddam had ignored his "final chance to disarm" as laid down by UN resolution 1441.

In the State of the Union address delivered before Congress and broadcast live around the world early today, he pledged to "fight with the full force and might of the United States military," if necessary, to disarm Iraq.

He said he has fresh evidence that the Iraqi leader seeks to "dominate, intimidate or attack" with weapons of mass destruction that he could share with terrorist allies.

The first half of his hour-long address was devoted to domestic policy, a reflection of his desire not to let Iraq overshadow a presidential agenda geared toward the 2004 re-election campaign. The heart of the President's programme is his $674 billion plan to revive the economy and a $400 billion, 10-year proposal to overhaul the Medicare health care program for the elderly, sprinkled with initatives to combat AIDS and produce energy efficient cars.

After an address interupted 77 times by applause, Democrats challenged Bush's efforts both at home and abroad. "Tonight, the president used all the right rhetoric, but he still has all the wrong policies," said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle.

President Bush offered no new evidence to support his charges against Iraq, but said Secretary of State Colin Powell will go to the UN Security Council nexzt week to present the US case.

"We will consult, but let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm for the safety of our people, and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him," the President said.

Hoping to sway reluctant allies, he presented a list of Saddam's alleged offences, some of them newly revealed to the public. He said intelligence sources have reported that thousands of Iraqi personnel are at work hiding documents and materials from the UN weapons inspectors.

Specifically, he said Saddam had not accounted for up to 25,000 litres of anthrax, 38,000 litres of botulinum toxin, 500 tons of sarin, mustard gas and VX nerve agent and upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical weapons. "If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning," he said.

The president described the United States as still recovering from recession, terrorist attacks, corporate scandals and stock market declines. "Our economy is recovering, yet it is not growing fast enough or strongly enough," the president said.

He proposed spending new money for research to develop hydrogen powered cars and to tutor children of prison inmates. He also called for a new $600 million drug treatment program in which federal money could go to religious community service programs.

While Osama bin Laden and other key terrorists still elude capture, the president said the United States has caught many key commanders of al-Qa'ida and suggested others had been killed — "met a different fate," in his words.

Citing intelligence sources, secret communications "and statements by people now in custody," Bush renewed his assertion that Saddam aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qa'ida.

"Secretly, without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists or help them develop their own," Bush said.

President Bush said Saddam has shown "his utter contempt" for the United Nations and must be brought to account unless he disarms. "The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary, he is deceiving," the president said.

Among his charges against Iraq:

—The British government has learned that Saddam recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

—Iraqi officials are hiding documents and materials, and intelligence officers are posing as scientists that inspectors are supposed to interview.

—Three Iraqi defectors say Iraq had several mobile biological weapons labs in the 1990s that are now not accounted for.

"Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks, to build and keep weapons of mass destruction — but why? The only possible use he could have for those weapons is to dominate, intimidate or attack," he said, warning that Saddam could "resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East."

Earlier Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, tightened the screws on Baghdad by declaring for the first time that Iraq was now in "material breach" of UN demands.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, added to the pressure by warning that Russia might adopt a more hawkish position if the Iraqis resisted the UN inspectors' attempts to account for Iraq's banned weaponry.