PRESIDENT BUSH said yesterday that President Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship would enter its “final stage” if he does not declare his banned weapons of mass destruction within 17 days.

Delivering his starkest warning yet as he sought to enlist Nato’s support for a looming war with Iraq, Mr Bush said that Saddam would be inviting military action if he continued to deny his “arsenal of terror”.

“Should he again deny that this arsenal exists, he will have entered his final stage with a lie. And deception this time will not be tolerated. Delay and defiance will invite the severest consequences,” Mr Bush said.

Even as he spoke, American and British warplanes were in action over southern Iraq, attacking three air defence facilities after Iraq fired missiles at patrolling allied aircraft.

US officials said they had formally approached about fifty countries around the world for assistance in the war on terrorism and against Iraq. The officials said many of the countries had come to them, asking what they could do. Others had been contacted by the United States. America is looking for help across the board, from troops to equipment and Intelligence.

Washington regards the soliciting of support and increasing threats of military action as vital if the Iraqis are to take UN weapons inspectors seriously. Mr Bush said: “One thing is certain, he’ll be disarmed, one way or the other.” Saddam has until December 8 to confess fully to UN weapons inspectors his chemical, biological and nuclear programmes. American officials declined to say if they would act immediately in the event of an Iraqi denial, but one senior US official said: “We have a lot of information and we expect to get more. Iraq is coming up fast.”

US officials also declined to say if Mr Bush would regard silence from Baghdad as an immediate trigger for war, although they and Mr Bush refrained from saying that an initial Iraqi denial would amount to a material breach of the UN resolution.

British officials said that the Iraqis would trigger war only if they refused to declare their arsenal and also deliberately obstructed the UN inspectors.

Mr Bush issued his latest warning in a speech to students from Nato countries, gathered in Prague for the first alliance summit to be held in a former Warsaw Pact capital. Seeking to assuage the concerns of allies, Mr Bush used other appearances during his first day in the Czech Republic to play down the threat of imminent action.

He said that he was “not close to that decision point yet” because the world was “just beginning the process of allowing Saddam the chance to show whether or not he will disarm”. He said war was avoidable, adding that it was “my last option. I hope we can do this peacefully.”

However, Mr Bush used his speech to tell Nato countries that it was their duty to support the fight against terrorism and Saddam. “International stability must be actively defended, and all nations that benefit from that stability have a duty to help.”

In a remark apparently directed at Germany, Mr Bush said the world needed Europe to be “active in defence of freedom, not inward-looking or isolated by indifference”.

German officials said they were mending fences with Washington after the upset caused by anti-US rhetoric during Gerhard Schröder’s re-election campaign.

Mr Bush’s most important meeting yesterday was with President Sezer of Turkey, whose bases America wants to use for launching strikes against Iraq in the event of war.

The US is dangling a package that could be worth billions to Ankara in the form of direct aid, discounted US weaponry and debt write-offs. One US official said: “We are going to be talking very closely with our Turkish friends.”

Mr Bush said today’s official invitation to seven aspirant Nato countries was a “decisive, historic moment”.

• Washington is to disperse troops and military assistance teams throughout Afghanistan. The aim, in a significant reversal of White House foreign policy, is to secure the countryside and boost reconstruction efforts. The move comes after a marked increase in attacks on American troops by pro-Taleban and al-Qaeda forces, and heightened fears about the stability of the derelict State.

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