Iraq says UK holds key to conflict

LONDON, England -- Iraq says it believes that if Britain refuses to support U.S. plans for war against Baghdad, conflict could be averted.

"Nobody supports the United States except Britain," Iraq's representative in London, Mudhafar Amin, told Reuters on Wednesday.

"If Britain refused to go along with the United States' war against Iraq then I think the American administration would find it very difficult to go ahead."

Amin also accused Washington of using UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's declared open-ended support for his war on terror as a diplomatic front.

"They are using Britain as a diplomatic -- more even than a military -- cover to show the world that they have allies and are not alone," he said.

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"Public sentiment in Britain is mostly against the war. If that is true it would put many difficulties in front of the United States administration to wage war against Iraq."

He made his comments as a British government minister said war with Iraq was not "inevitable."

Foreign Office minister Mike O'Brien said the international position would be "very different" if Baghdad agreed to readmit U.N. weapons inspectors.

Asked by BBC Radio 4's Today programme about the likelihood of military action against Iraq, he said: "It is not imminent and it is not inevitable. Nobody wants war for the sake of it.

"We understand there are issues in relation to Iraq. In particular we need to make sure the inspectors go in.

"The ball is now in Saddam Hussein's court. He must ensure that the inspectors go into Iraq and that international law is complied with."

Later on Wednesday, Saudi Arabia refused permission for access to its air bases.

Foreign Minister Prince Saud told the Associated Press: "We have told (the United States) we don't (want) them to use Saudi grounds."

The U.S. government said it had not asked Saudi Arabia to either allow it to stage invasion forces on its soil or to give permission to launch offensive air strikes from Saudi bases.

"We tend not to ask the Saudi government for anything, unless we know they are going to say 'yes,'" a U.S. official told CNN. (Full story)

The U.S. determination for a "regime change" in Iraq is dividing Europe, as well as opening a rift between the continent and the United States.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and President Jacques Chirac of France have both said there must not be any invasion of Iraq without a clear new U.N. mandate.

"The fight (against terrorism) is not yet won, and that's why I warn against an attack on Iraq," Schroeder wrote in the Bild newspaper on Wednesday.

"It would not be thought of as defensive and could destroy the international coalition. The Middle East needs peace, not new war. This is the goal of our policies."

Schroeder's foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, also questioned the wisdom of an attack.

"The questions that stopped George Bush senior letting American troops advance on Baghdad at the beginning of the '90s remain unanswered today," Fischer told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily.

"The United States has the military means to force a regime change in Iraq -- but does one realize the risks? Does one realize that this would bring with it a total reorganization of the Middle East -- not only in military but political terms?"

Fischer said that "could mean for the United States a decades-long presence in this region. Whether the Americans are prepared for that is more than open.

"If they were to end their presence prematurely, then we Europeans -- as the region's immediate neighbors -- would have to bear the fatal consequences," he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Baghdad's invitation for talks on readmitting U.N. weapons inspectors had opened a peaceful way out of the crisis.

"Other means, especially forceful, are inacceptable from the viewpoint of international law and could only exacerbate the already difficult situation," Ivanov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.

"Russia believes it extremely important not to miss the opening opportunities for a political and diplomatic settlement of the situation around Iraq."

CNN European Political Editor Robin Oakley says the most hawkish of EU leaders has been Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar of Spain, while Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is expected to back U.S. action. (Full story)

While Blair remains U.S. President George W. Bush's most openly supportive European ally, his senior MPs are urging a recall of Parliament for debate on the Iraq question, while the next Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Church, Rowan Williams, was among signatories to a petition calling any attack "immoral and illegal."

A recent opinion poll showed more than half of Britons are against a military move on Baghdad.