A senior US envoy launched an attempt to win French and Russian support for a tough UN resolution on disarming Iraq today, after Washington and London agreed on threatening to use force against Baghdad.
In Baghdad, Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz vowed the Iraqi people were ready to defend their country against any US strike to topple President Saddam Hussein's regime.
"We are going to defend our country. This is our responsibility and we are prepared for that," Mr Aziz said in an interview broadcast on Iraqi Satellite Television.
As the US government stepped up efforts to secure approval for military action, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced yesterday "agreement with the United Kingdom on what the elements of the resolution should look like."
And Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Washington had "solid evidence" of top-level contacts between Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda terror network and Iraq going back a decade, including possible chemical weapons training.
On the political front in Washington, President George W Bush said he was close to agreement with Congress on a strong resolution that would give him domestic authorisation to order force against Iraq if necessary.
But Congress has been engaged in an acrimonious debate over Mr Bush's request this week.
Mr Powell said he had spoken with the foreign ministers of the four other veto-holding members of the UN Security Council about the new resolution that Mr Bush has demanded, but admitted that agreement was still a long way off.
Mr Marc Grossman, undersecretary of state for political affairs, arrived for talks in France and was to travel on to Russia, two of the UN big powers where opposition to new UN action is highest, to discuss the draft.
Mr Grossman, accompanied by a British diplomat, will discuss "with the French and the Russians what we believe should be in such a resolution," Mr Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and France's Jacques Chirac held telephone talks yesterday and agreed to take the "same approach" working together at the Security Council, a spokeswoman for Mr Chirac said.
AFP