Some Europeans rally to Bush

America's closest friends in Europe urged those opposed to invading Iraq to line up behind George W. Bush yesterday, as the focus of diplomacy swung further toward preparing for war rather than averting it.

There are just weeks left for talking - not months - said a White House spokesman, suggesting that one of the few options open to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein now was to go into exile.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and seven others including the leaders of Italy, Poland and Spain signed an open letter calling on the peace camp - implicitly Germany, France and Russia - to rally to the US standard against Iraq.

"The transatlantic relationship must not become a casualty of the current Iraqi regime's attempts to threaten world security," they wrote in a letter printed in several newspapers.

There was no sign of a change of heart, however. Public opinion in France, Germany and elsewhere remains firmly opposed to an American-run war and Greece, the European Union president, slammed the letter for undermining efforts at EU unity.

At the centre of an intense round of diplomacy, starting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's meeting with Bush yesterday and leading up to what may be a crunch meeting of the United Nations Security Council on February 14, will be US efforts to convince the doubters it has evidence that Iraq has nuclear, biological or chemical weapons of mass destruction.

"The president is using this window now to engage in very busy and active diplomacy. This will take place in a period of weeks, not months," Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said. Baghdad has dismissed previous suggestions Saddam might go into exile.

In the Middle East, Syrian state media concluded that Bush's State of the Union address this week had been nothing short of a "declaration of war". In Baghdad, one newspaper dismissed it as a "Hollywood commotion". Saddam vowed to break America's neck.

Nelson Mandela, South Africa's former president and Nobel peace laureate, said the United States did not care for human beings and that Bush was plunging the world into a "holocaust".

High-level diplomacy was not restricted to Washington. Blair, who has sent much of Britain's forces to the Gulf, was to meet Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar in Madrid before flying on to Washington for talks today at Camp David.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, who has warned that invasion could set off "calamitous" unrest in neighbouring Iraq, was also expected for talks at the White House yesterday.

Bush, who US officials said may discuss setting Saddam a deadline, says he is willing to launch the big US invasion force now massing in the Gulf without further UN backing.

But he is sending Secretary of State Colin Powell to the Security Council on Wednesday with more intelligence data in the hope of avoiding a bitter split with other big powers.

Since renewing inspections two months ago, UN experts have come up with little hard evidence of weapons banned by UN resolutions passed after the 1991 Gulf War. Chief nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei renewed his calls yesterday for several months more to conduct searches.

But US officials have made clear they have other grounds for wanting to get rid of Saddam anyway - Bush accused him of aiding Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, the group Washington blames for the September 11 attacks. Military schedules and looming summer heat also lead many analysts to forecast that, barring surprises such as Saddam falling from power, war will begin within weeks.

"The Iraqis are on notice. They have probably till February 14 before a decision will have to be made about bringing them into conformity with their international obligations," Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham said. Canada has argued for giving inspections more time but seemed to be hardening its stance.

On February 14, Valentine's Day, ElBaradei and fellow inspector Hans Blix will report again to the Security Council. ElBaradei said his teams had yet to find a "gross violation".

An Iraqi opposition source said US troops were already at work in Kurd-controlled northern Iraq, prompting the Pentagon to say there were no "significant forces" in the area "right now".

China, one of five permanent members of the Security Council with the power to veto any new resolution calling for an attack on Iraq, repeated its calls for a peaceful UN solution.

But many analysts argue that, like fellow permanent members France and Russia, Beijing may in the end prefer to go along with the unstoppable force of American arms rather than risk a rift with Washington for the sake of Baghdad's isolated leader.