Straw says Saddam must readmit UN arms inspectors 'or his regime will have to end'

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, yesterday gave Britain's strongest backing yet to President George Bush's demands for "regime change" in Iraq.

Speaking in New York, where he is embroiled in negotiations over a new United Nations Security Council resolution on Iraq, Mr Straw said the UN had to pose to Saddam Hussein "a very clear choice: either he deals with those weapons of mass destruction or his regime will have to end".

Until now, Britain has stopped short of joining the US administration in describing "regime change" as a goal of policy. Although British officials denied any shift, there was little doubt that Mr Straw was deliberately hardening his language in an attempt to exert maximum pressure on President Saddam and the UN.

He told Sky Television: "The choice is his [President Saddam's] and he hasn't got much time to make up his mind ... They [the Iraqis] have been playing games with us for long enough, played games with world peace for long enough."

The Iraqis had been playing "fast and loose with the international community", he said. Weapons inspectors had to be readmitted "without restriction, without condition".

Mr Straw said that Iraq was an "extraordinarily dangerous regime that needs to be brought within the international legal system".

The Foreign Secretary said he had talked to his counterparts around the world at the UN meeting and there was "overwhelming support" for Mr Bush's position. He insisted that there was not a foreign minister in the world who did not want to see the back of the Iraqi President.

He said the Government's dossier on Iraq, to be published on 24 September, when Parliament is recalled, would contain "new facts" about President Saddam's regime. It would include information published last week by the International Institute for Strategic Studies and as much intelligence information as possible, he added.

However, British officials dismissed speculation that the long-awaited dossier would prove that some of Osama bin Laden's lieutenants were trained by Iraq. They said the report would focus on President Saddam's chemical and biological weapons and his desire to acquire nuclear weapons.

Mr Straw said that the five permanent members of the Security Council had not made a final decision about whether there would be one resolution or more. He said the purpose of the resolution was clear: to highlight previous UN edicts that President Saddam had ignored and to demand the readmission of weapons inspectors.

Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's ambassador to the UN, played down hopes of an early breakthrough in negotiations in New York, saying it was important not to "expect resolutions to be slapped down in a day or two". Careful steps would be taken to ensure the "highest degree of consensus in the Security Council", he said.

Mr Straw's comments come as it was claimed President Saddam could be ready to make nuclear weapons within months. Dr Khidir Hamza, who worked as a nuclear science adviser in Iraq until 1994, warned that the Iraqi leader might be able to produce the deadly weapons within three months using pirated German equipment and smuggled uranium from Brazil, if he had not already done so.

According to Dr Hamza, the material needed to create a bomb was already inside the country's borders and might be being converted to weapon's grade. Dr Hamza helped to develop Iraq's nuclear bomb programme before his defection.