SADDAM HUSSEIN has ten days to disarm or face the certainty of a war led by America and Britain.

Tony Blair took the gamble of his life last night when he demanded that the UN Security Council agree to a final deadline of March 17 for the Iraqi leader to come into line.

The Prime Minister did so without any guarantee of securing the nine UN votes needed on Tuesday for a resolution authorising war or of stopping France and Russia vetoing it. And he did so in the face of a report from Hans Blix which concluded that Iraq had carried out a “substantial measure of disarmament”. The chief UN weapons inspector said: “We are not watching the breaking of toothpicks, lethal weapons are being destroyed.”

Dr Blix did not, however, tell the Security Council until after yesterday’s foreign ministers’ meeting that he had discovered a new Iraqi drone that could be used to spray chemical weapons over a range of 300 miles.

The ultimatum was proposed by Jack Straw in a dramatic speech in which he called on the international community to uphold the will of the UN.

France’s Dominique de Villepin had rejected the deadline as a pretext for war, declaring “We cannot accept an ultimatum as long as inspectors are reporting co-operation. France will not allow a resolution to pass that authorises the automatic use of force.”

But Mr Straw took on M Villepin in open combat, saying that the pressure on Saddam had come because there were “over 200,000 US and UK young men and young women willing to put their lives on the line for the sake of this body, the UN”. Saddam must be put to the test.

The Foreign Secretary accused M de Villepin of posing a “false choice” in suggesting that the Council could choose peace or war: “The choice, Dominique, is not ours as to how this disarmament takes place, it is Saddam Hussein’s.”

Mr Blair has put his career on the line by deciding to put a resolution to a vote next week. It reads: “Iraq will have failed to take the final opportunity afforded in Resolution 1441 unless, on or before 17 March, 2003, the Council concludes that Iraq had demonstrated full, unconditional, immediate and active co-operation.”

President Bush had agreed with Mr Blair that diplomacy should be given a final week to end the crisis. But there is no doubt that whatever happens to the resolution, America will be ready to go to war the week after next — with British troops alongside.

UN backing is not essential for Mr Bush, but he is fully aware that Mr Blair needs it to win Labour Party and British public support for military action. If the resolution fails, Mr Blair will face a revolt even larger than last week’s, when 121 Labour MPs voted against him. That would raise serious questions about his future.

Britain’s decision to table the deadline came after frantic discussions involving Mr Straw, Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, and the key “swing” members of the Security Council, some of whom were consulted over the wording of the amendment. If they get the nine votes they need, Britain and America will effectively dare France and Russia to veto it. There were signs last night that Russia might soften its position after calls from Mr Blair and Mr Bush.

Dr Blix said that Iraq had begun to co-operate with his inspectors; 34 proscribed al-Samoud 2 missiles had been destroyed and papers had been supplied relating to anthrax stocks. Of the scrapping of the al-Samoud missiles, he said: “The destruction undertaken constitutes a substantial measure of disarmament.” Baghdad’s co-operation “can be seen as active, or even proactive”, he concluded. Dr Blix had also, however, submitted a 167-page report in which he suggested that Iraq still had huge stocks of biological and chemical weapons and that it might be relaunching banned missile programmes.

Downing Street said that the report showed that co-operation was neither immediate nor full; Mr Straw described the report as chilling and General Powell quoted passages to show that Saddam’s intent had not changed and that Iraq was “moving down the path to weapons of mass destruction”.

But Dr Blix infuriated America by failing to tell the foreign ministers about the discovery of a new Iraqi drone with a wingspan of more than seven metres. The drone, which is subject to the same UN rules as missiles, had been test-flown for 500km (300 miles) non-stop; the UN limit is 150km.

The discovery was reported in a six-page addendum to Dr Blix’s report, which was not circulated until after the Security Council meeting.

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