US tests water on second resolution over Iraq

The United States was taking soundings yesterday as it prepared to make a crucial decision: whether to go for a second United Nations resolution on Iraq, as its main ally Britain desperately wants; or give up on the Security Council and launch an invasion, perhaps as soon as early March.

Senior Bush administration officials are not hiding their impatience, after the huge weekend peace demonstrations and developments at the UN seemed to stall momentum towards war.

Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Adviser signalled at the weekend that Washington was unmoved by the worldwide protests, and repeated the administration's mantra that only "weeks not months" are left if war is to be avoided. "The world needs to pull itself together," she said. She seemed to rule out France's proposal that the UN wait until the inspectors' scheduled report of 14 March before deciding what to do.

Although Pentagon officials say that with 150,000 US troops in the region, Washington is already in a position to act, the full force build-up will not be complete until the end of February. The equation was further complicated yesterday when Turkey indicated that it was delaying a key parliamentary vote on whether to permit the US to station troops on its soil for use in a second front, attacking Iraq from the north.

The administration accepts that Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, will make a second report to the Security Council on 28 February. But if that produces the same sort of mixed verdict as his first two reports – no "smoking gun", progress on matters of process, but less so on substance – every sign is the US will say, enough is enough, and unleash an invasion.

But, with an eye on US public opinion, as well as on the domestic political predicament of Tony Blair, Washington's chief ally, the administration prefers a second resolution, at least tacitly endorsing the use of force.

But the US would set stiff disarmament conditions that Iraq must meet by a certain deadline. If Baghdad had not done so, then "serious consequences," ie war, would kick in.

US planning is being driven by a meteorological as well as a military and political calendar. The Pentagon insists it is capable of waging war under any conditions, and most analysts here believe a conflict would be short.

But senior commanders are keen to avoid fighting in the hot desert temperatures that can kick in as early as April. Nor, for political reasons, can war wait until this time next year, when the presidential election primaries will be in full swing.