US and British hopes of winning a new UN resolution authorising military action on Iraq within upcoming weeks triggered a final round of diplomacy yesterday to sway reluctant allies and opponents.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair was expected to lead the charge after standing shoulder-to-shoulder with US President George W Bush late on Friday to tell Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that "time is running out".

Blair was notably expected to press for support from fellow permanent UN Security Council member France at an Anglo-French summit

on Tuesday.

Blair returned home from Washington yesterday sounding more hopeful of securing a second, politically crucial UN resolution to underpin a US-led military assault on Iraq.

"I believe there will be a second resolution," Blair told reporters on his flight back to London, where he was preparing this weekend for talks on Tuesday with French President Jacques Chirac, who is wary of waging war on Iraq.

"I think it's important to get this thing (the crisis over Iraq and weapons of mass destruction) resolved one way or another -- and I think it

will be very clear to people whether Saddam is cooperating or not in the next few weeks.

But, while Bush softened his stance to "welcome" the idea of a new resolution -- advocated by Blair, his closest ally -- he warned that "any attempt to drag the process on for months will be resisted by the United States".

He insisted that the military greenlight was already lit, saying a resolution on disarmament adopted November 8 "gives us the authority to move without any second resolution."

That mandate, UN Resolution 1441, threatens "serious conse-

quences" if Iraq fails to cooperate fully with UN inspections aimed at finding and destroying suspected weapons of mass destruction.

Veto-wielding Security Council members China, France and Russia interpret 1441 to mean that a second resolution is needed before war, and say that the inspections still have some time to go.

Eight other non-permanent members, including Germany, which chairs the council this month, share that stance. That leaves only four members -- the United States, Britain, Spain and Bulgaria -- in favour of imminent war. Bush reportedly told Blair that he was only prepared to give the UN inspection process up to six more weeks.

The United States, Britain and Australia have deployed a massive land, sea and air force to the Gulf region that will count more than 150,000 service personnel, several aircraft carriers and hundreds of warplanes by mid-February.

More than 100 US and British special forces have also flew in from Jordan to mount a six-day covert mission in western Iraq to identify key targets in the event of a war, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported Saturday, quoting defence sources.

According to official Iraqi newspapers, Saddam told senior military aides that if war happens: "The enemy will not enter Baghdad's suburbs because he will die. Even if they send a million soldiers, our boys will kill them."

The ratcheted-up rhetoric overshadows efforts by several countries to push for a peaceful solution.

Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, is to begin a tour of several Arab countries from Sunday, while Russian officials will hold talks Monday with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

With the clock ticking, chief UN arms inspectors have said they would accept an invitation to Baghdad to discuss their demands for greater cooperation only if Iraqi officials assured them the talks would be fruitful.

Chief UN inspector Hans Blix, told reporters Friday he would "certainly" agree to meet Saddam if he were invited to do so, but diplomats said that was extremely unlikely.

General Amer al-Saadi, an adviser to Saddam, has written to Blix and the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, saying that "ideally" they should visit Baghdad before February 10 -- four days before their next update to the UN Security Council.

A spokesman for Blix said a response was being considered. "We are seeking assurances that such a meeting would lead to something fruitful," he said.

Next Wednesday, US Secretary of State Colin Powell goes before the UN Security Council to lay out what Washington says is fresh evidence that Iraq is defying disarmament demands.

Newsweek magazine, quoting US officials and intelligence experts, said Powell would be providing damning electronic evidence that Iraq haslied to UN inspectors and hidden weapons from them.

Electronic intercepts made by the National Security Council (NSC) "prove that Iraq has repeatedly lied to UN inspectors, plotted among themselves about how to conceal weapons material and even appeared to boast afterward about their success," Newsweek said.

Iraq said late Friday it wants a send a top official to the Wednesday meeting to observe the evidence Powell is

to present.

Several contentions Washington has put forward as a premise for war have been challenged by the UN inspectors, other countries and independent observers.

Blix told Friday's New York Times that he has seen no evidence backing US claims that Baghdad has ties to the al-Qaeda network, nor that Iraqi agents were posing as scientists.

The Middle East Economic Survey (MEES) reports in its Monday edition that there was also no evidence that Iraq intends to blow up its oil wells if the United States starts a war -- a tactic used in Kuwaiti oilfields during the 1991 conflict.

US special forces are reportedly preparing to seize the oil wells at the start of a conflict to prevent such a scenario.

The increasing likelihood of war has prompted a flurry of recent warnings from the US government to its diplomats and citizens abroad.

In the latest, the US embassy in Saudi Arabia yesterday urged the 30,000 Americans in the Gulf state neighbouring Iraq to consider leaving.

The Philippines president, Gloria Arroyo, made a similar appeal to her estimated 1.4 million nationals in the region ahead of a hastily arranged visit to Kuwait Sunday.

"As we pray there will be no war, let us pray that if there is a war, it will be a swift one," Arroyo said.