US rejects French call for month's delay over resolution

The United States said yesterday that a French proposal to give inspections in Iraq four more weeks before allowing consideration of a new United Nations resolution on the use of force would amount to appeasing the regime of Saddam Hussein.

"Continuing to talk about more time and more time is basically going to relieve pressure on the Iraqis to do what they must do," said Condoleezza Rice, the US National Security Adviser, during a round of interviews on the Sunday morning news shows.

Ms Rice was responding to a French call, reiterated yesterday, that inspections be allowed to continue until 14 March, when the chief inspector, Hans Blix, would make a new report on progress.

Stressing that the US did not want a "street fight" with France, Ms Rice none the less pressed the case against waiting until mid-March.

"Tyrants don't respond to any kind of appeasement, tyrants don't respond to negotiation, tyrants do respond to toughness. The world needs to pull itself together and send a very strong message to the Iraqis," Ms Rice said.

She gave no indication, however, that Washington has already lost patience with the Security Council or is considering abandoning the quest for a new resolution. "We are prepared to work toward that end. We will see where we come out," she said.

Britain and the US had signalled in advance of a session of the UN security council on Friday last week that they would circulate a draft second resolution as soon as this week, setting the stage for military action to force Iraq to comply with the disarmament resolution adopted in November. However, the Anglo-American approach suffered a setback at Friday's meeting when France led a majority of members in urging more time for inspectors and Mr Blix gave a surprisingly positive report suggesting that Iraq was making some progress in offering co-operation.

One British diplomatic source hinted that London might now hold off tabling a text for some time. "If that takes another couple of weeks, that time will have to be found," the source said, stressing that there would have to be a defined deadline for the UN inspection process to produce results. "But not if it's just buying another four weeks," he added, referring to Anglo-American suspicion that France is only delaying.

Meanwhile, US officials this weekend hinted that Washington is simultaneously planning to test Iraqi compliance over the next two weeks with a series of specific demands. They would include asking Iraq immediately to allow interviews of its scientists without minders, and unconditional overflights by American, European and Russian reconnaissance aircraft.

"We are looking for some early benchmarks, specific things that the Iraqis will have to do to show full compliance," one administration official told The New York Times.