Blair says Iraq has 'one last chance'

Bush speech to United Nations will urge member states to vote for new inspections resolution

Tony Blair will challenge the United Nationsto reassert its moral authority by giving Iraq "one last chance'' to readmit weapons inspectors before facing American-led military action.

In a speech to the TUC conference in Blackpool tomorrow, the Prime Minister will underline Anglo-American efforts to build international support against President Saddam Hussein and stress that Iraq cannot be allowed to develop chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons.

The Prime Minister's address comes two days before Thursday's crucial speech by President George Bush to the UN General Assembly. It will lay the ground for Mr Bush's expected ultimatum to member states that, unless swift and strong measures are taken against Iraq, America will be forced to act on its own.

Downing Street refused to comment last night on reports in America claiming that Britain would lead the diplomatic offensive by tabling a new UN resolution giving Baghdad four weeks to allow inspectors back in with unfettered access and backed up by "one strike and you're out'' military force.

Fresh from his Camp David summit with the American President, Mr Blair will seek to win over doubters at home and abroad by emphasising that the UN can take a central role in tackling President Saddam if it is serious about the need for action.

"The Prime Minister will say at the TUC that the UN, as the representative body of the international community, is the right place to be addressing issues like this, but it has to be on the basis that it is going to address it and deal with it,'' a senior government source said.

President Bush's speech to the UN will open the door to a possible new round of inspections, a move that would represent a victory for Mr Blair's approach and a setback for the more hawkish elements in the White House.

But despite the last-ditch effort by London and Washington to involve the world in the crisis, the Prime Minister and President Bush did discuss detailed strategies to remove the Iraqi leader from power while preventing the disintegration of his country.

High-level military officials secretly attended the Camp David summit as the options were outlined to Mr Blair and a post-Saddam Iraq was sketched out. In a strong sign that the endgame was being discussed in detail, one senior British official travelling with Mr Blair said Afghanistan had proved the need to use people on the ground to achieve regime change. "We need to get across the message to the Iraqi people that we do not see them in the same light as Saddam and his regime and emphasise the territorial integrity of Iraq will be there for the long term,'' he said.

Iraqi exiles have told the Americans that while they could tolerate federalisation of their country to include Kurds and Marsh Arabs, they will not tolerate the break-up of Iraq.

With both Britain and America conceding that they have been losing the battle for public opinion, Mr Blair and Mr Bush are now expected to publish a dossier of evidence against President Saddam next week.

Timed to come out before the Labour Party conference, the dossier will build on other reports, such as that published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies today, by exposing just how actively the Iraqi leadership is seeking weapons of mass destruction.

To appease Arab opinion and Mr Blair's Labour critics, a fresh attempt to resurrect the Middle East peace process will also be launched alongside the new hard-line approach to Iraq. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's ambassador to the UN, is understood to have been working on a new resolution that would include the idea of a specific deadline for Baghdad. It may give four weeks for the readmittance of "coercive'' inspectors and set a target for total disarmament within one year.

A Downing Street source said: "You can't have a situation where, year after year on issue after issue, in relation to a really dangerous threat, that Saddam is allowed to flout the will of the international community. The Prime Minister's view is that the UN just can't wait for ever while Saddam carries on breaching these resolutions.''

As he left Washington yesterday, Mr Blair repeatedly referred to the need to broaden support for any military action. But he stressed that inaction was not an option and suggested that Iraq could be just months away from a nuclear capability. He told Sky Television: "If we allow international terrorists or rogue states to acquire significant chemical, biological or nuclear capability, then at some point they will use that capability and the consequences of that will be horrendous."