With transatlantic relations faltering, Mr Rumsfeld suggested that Paris and Berlin were stuck in the past. “You look at vast numbers of other countries in Europe,” he said. “They’re not with France and Germany on this. They’re with the United States.”

His remarks worsened the stand-off between the United States and France and Germany over the strategy towards Iraq. Officials in Paris said that they were “profoundly vexed” by Mr Rumsfeld’s comments.

Francis Mer, the Finance Minister, said: “I want to remind everyone that this ‘old Europe’ has resilience, and is capable of bouncing back. And it will show it, in time.”

Mr Rumsfeld’s remarks revealed deepening frustration in Washington that Paris and Berlin, two decades-old allies rescued by the United States in their time of need, were refusing to heed its call.

Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State who is regarded by Europeans as the dove that they can trust in the senior ranks of the Bush Administration, was equally withering. “Frankly, there are some nations in the world who would like simply to turn away from this problem, pretend it isn’t there,” he said.

But Mr Rumsfeld’s intervention also served to highlight the support that Washington expects to receive from newer Nato countries in the event of a war with Iraq.

American officials cited the Czech Republic, Poland, the Baltic states, Romania and Bulgaria as likely members of Mr Bush’s “coalition of the willing”. Having escaped a totalitarian past themselves, they understood the horrors of Saddam’s regime, they said.

Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said that he respected the opinions of France and Germany, but made it clear that their absence from the battlefield would not alter the outcome. He said that Bush had “no doubt in his mind” that the coalition assembled would be overwhelmingly successful.

Mr Rumsfeld’s “old Europe” comments revealed divisions in the Bush Administration about how to deal with France and Germany.

The more hawkish members of the Administration, such as the Defence Secretary, are arguing that Washington should take the French at their word, and proceed without them, with all that would mean for the vastly diminished French influence in a post-Saddam Iraq.

Others, led by General Powell, have not given up on wringing eventual agreement out of France. They blame the stand-off on French “vanity”, and the need to use their permanent seat on the Security Council to maximise their clout. “They don’t get to use their influence on the Security Council that much. When they do, boy, do they love their moment in the limelight,” one official said.

General Powell, following talks with Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, in Washington, insisted that the process of negotiating with other Security Council countries was not yet exhausted. “This is a beginning debate, not the end of a debate,” he said.

He conceded that there were “sharp differences” between the United States and France and Germany. He said there were also similar differences between Security Council members when they started last autumn the eight-week negotiation that produced the UN resolution authorising the current inspection regime.

In Baghdad, Iraqi officials said they had tried to encourage scientists to agree to be interviewed by UN inspectors, but none had agreed to do so. The US has been accusing Iraq of preventing the interviews, which are provided for in the inspectors’ brief, and yesterday’s assertions by Baghdad are unlikely to impress Washington.

The failure of the interviews to take place is one of the ways in which the US says Iraq is in breach of the UN resolution.

In the US, several senators spoke up against moves towards an imminent war, urging Mr Bush to give inspectors more time.

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