Nato powers back disarming Iraq, but divided on war

Nato leaders issued a united declaration of support yesterday for efforts to disarm Iraq, papering over their deep differences on the US threat to go to war.

As the Nato summit opened in Prague, US and British warplanes bombed southern Iraq. Analysts said such near-daily skirmishes amounted to an undeclared air war, giving Western jets increasing dominance of the skies over Iraq.

The Pentagon said the target was Iraqi air defence radar, attacked because Iraqi forces had been spotted moving a missile battery into the southern no-fly zone.

Iraq said the Western planes bombed civilian targets and had been driven off by Iraqi anti-aircraft fire.

Two American soldiers were shot and wounded by a Kuwaiti policeman, in the latest of a series of such incidents in a US ally expected to be a crucial launch pad for any attack on Iraq.

In Lebanon, where anti-American feeling has also intensified amid the threat of a war on Iraq, an American missionary was shot dead by a suspected Islamist gunman.

Weapons inspector Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on his return to Vienna from Baghdad that Iraq had promised him full cooperation and understood "the seriousness of the situation".

"I think we have to try every chance to avoid war if we can," he added.

US forces have little need of practical military help from Nato allies for any attack on Iraq, although airbases such as Turkey's are strategically important. But President George W. Bush used the Prague talks to lobby Nato leaders to provide at least clear moral support.

The wording of yesterday's summit declaration, however, was watered down by alliance members wary of eventual war.

"Nato allies... were united in their commitment to take effective action to assist and support the efforts of the UN to ensure full and immediate compliance by Iraq... with (UN resolution) 1441," it said.

"We recall that the Security Council in this resolution has warned Iraq it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violation of its obligations," the statement added.

A French official in Prague was quick to express his government's desire to rein in US military plans. An Iraqi denial that it possesses weapons of mass destruction, in an arms inventory demanded by the UN by a December 8 deadline, would not justify war, the official said.

The official was responding to a warning by Bush on Wednesday that if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein denied in the inventory that Iraq has nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, he would enter his "final stage" and reap the most severe consequences.

"On December 8, we will take note of what Iraq says it has or does not have, and we will see if its behaviour is consistent with its statement," the French official said. "If the inspectors found something afterwards, that would constitute a serious violation."

Saddam's government has so far flatly maintained it has no weapons of mass destruction.

A senior Bush administration official said the White House was happy with the language in the Prague Nato declaration since it went beyond a mere political statement by citing the warning in the UN resolution of "serious consequences" for Iraq.

US officials have suggested that the ever more frequent clashes between Iraqi anti-aircraft gunners and patrolling US and British warplanes over Iraq could also be a breach of the UN resolution, a view not shared by other governments.

Analysts said that the air war could be said to have already begun. "What we've basically had is the first two to three weeks of the 1991 Gulf War already fought," said Paul Beaver, a London-based defence and security consultant.

"It's actually substantially reduced the capacity of Iraq to detect and therefore deal with aircraft flying in their airspace," he added.

A political commentary broadcast by Iraqi satellite television appeared to assert that Iraqi forces would continue to fire at Western planes.

"The valiant sons of Iraq are confronting the US and British ravens of evil. Iraq will continue to exercise its sovereign right and defend its independence, security and stability," the BBC monitoring service quoted it as saying.

The most senior Iraqi defector alive - facing a possible war crimes case in Denmark over the gassing of Kurds - told Reuters he had been powerless to stop the chemical attacks.

"The concept of resignation does not exist in Saddam's Iraq. You serve until Saddam tells you to stop. My family would have been also killed if I tried to step down," General Nizar al-Khazraji, former chief of staff of Iraqi army, said from his house in Soro, west of Copenhagen.

The White House said it had consulted more than 50 countries about what they might contribute to a war on Iraq, from soldiers to hard cash for postwar reconstruction.

A French official said after Bush met President Jacques Chirac that Paris would not commit itself before the UN Security Council had discussed any possible use of force.

Nato diplomats said Washington asked Germany to open its airspace and bases, posing a dilemma for its anti-war government but requested nothing that would involve German troops directly.

Britain is expected to give more military help than any other country - about 15,000 troops.

More than 200 prominent Muslim activists, mostly from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait and Morocco, accused the United States of leading a crusade against Islam and said a war on Iraq could provoke revenge attacks against Westerners.