PRESIDENT BUSH’s key officials are split over the critical question of how much international support Washington needs before starting a war with Iraq.

As United Nations weapons inspectors swarmed through one of Saddam Hussein’s presidential palaces yesterday, officials in the White House, Pentagon and State Department were at odds about what constitutes a critical mass of diplomatic and military backing.

Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, suggests that the United States can launch strikes with next to no overseas backing as long as it has active British support, according to informed sources.

But State Department doves, under Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, are pushing for explicit United Nations authority for a war with maximum backing on the 15-member Security Council.

American officials do not rule out securing a second UN resolution with an explicit backing of force. Tony Blair said yesterday that he believed that the Security Council would back one because Washington and London would present a good case.

However, US officials are planning a so-called Kosovo option, under which Mr Bush will seek to launch military strikes without UN backing if he has enough vocal support from other foreign capitals. The Kosovo conflict went ahead without UN support because Russia, one of the five veto-bearing permanent members, blocked it, but agreed “to look the other way”.

The option would complicate the Pentagon’s efforts to win access to the military bases, airspace and, in some cases, the borders of states in the region, such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Turkey’s delay in allowing US military planners and personnel on its bases and its prevarication over their use has slowed the military build-up. It is regarded by the Pentagon as a key launch pad for strikes in the north of Iraq. US officials say that the Pentagon could launch a war without the active support of either, but it would be much harder.

However, Canada suggested yesterday that it could join an attack on Baghdad without UN backing. Jean Chrétien, the Prime Minister, had said that UN approval would be required for Canada to take part, but, asked what his position would be if the US and Britain attacked anyway, he said: “Come and see me then.”

Much depends on how Saddam reacts to a more intrusive round of inspections, such as the one yesterday at the al-Jamhoury compound in Baghdad, where he is believed to conduct most of his business.

At a meeting in New York, Condoleezza Rice, President Bush’s National Security Adviser, pressed Hans Blix, the UN’s chief weapons inspector, to adopt a more agressive approach in his efforts to interview Iraqi scientists.

The UN has authorised the inspectors to take scientists and their families out of the country to avoid reprisals. Britain is willing to provide its secure military bases in Cyprus for interviews with the scientists. The use of the sovereign bases at Akrotiri and Dhekelia is expected to be discussed when Dr Blix meets Mr Blair in London tomorrow on his way to Iraq.

The Bush Administration also given warning to Iraq against using civilians as human shields to try to ward off airstrikes. In December Saddam’s regime had threatened to use human shields to protect sensitive sites from attack, but General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that if “innocent civilians” were recruited, it would be considered “a war crime in any conflict.”

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