Straw warns Hussein to come clean about weapons or face end to regime

TIME is running out for Saddam Hussein to rid his country of weapons of mass destruction or face regime change, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in a TV interview broadcast yesterday.

The warning to the Iraqi dictator the strongest yet from the Government followed a call by US president George Bush to the UN to "show some backbone" and confront Mr Hussein over Iraq.

Mr Straw, speaking from the UN, where intensive discussions are under way about a possible new resolution against Baghdad, said there was not a foreign minister in the world that did not want to see the back of the Iraqi president.

He said the UN Security Council must pose to Mr Hussein a "very clear choice: Either he deals with those weapons of mass destruction or his regime will have to end".

"But the choice is his, and he hasn't got much time to make up his mind," he told Sky's Sunday With Adam Boulton programme.

Mr Straw also promised that the dossier which would be produced by the Government in 10 days would contain "new facts" about Mr Hussein's regime.

Mr Straw added: "They (Iraq) have been playing games with us for long enough, played games with world peace for long enough."

The Iraqis had been playing "fast and loose with the international community", he said.

Weapons inspectors had to be readmitted "without restriction, without condition".

The Foreign Secretary said he had talked to his counterparts around the world at the UN meeting and there was "overwhelming support" for Mr Bush's position.

Iraq was an "extraordinarily dangerous regime that needs to be brought within the international legal system".

The Government's dossier against Iraq, expected in time for when Parliament is recalled on September 24, will contain evidence of Mr Hussein's chemical and biological weapons, and his desire to acquire nuclear weapons, Mr Straw said.

It would include information published last week by the International Institute for Strategic Studies and as much intelligence information as possible, he added.

"It will contain new facts," Mr Straw said.

"There is no need to look in the crystal about the record of Saddam Hussein, it is there in the book."

Mr Straw's comments were likely to anger many Labour MPs, including former Culture Secretary Chris Smith, who has warned an attack on Iraq would cause the "disintegration of the international coalition against terrorism".

But Mr Straw denied there was a split in the Cabinet over Iraq.

He said: "I have no argument with my Cabinet colleagues about this. What the Cabinet will want to discuss is how we will proceed from where we are to the future.

"I believe that you will find that this Cabinet is as united on the need for resolute action as it has been in the past."

Earlier, in a speech to the UN general assembly, the Foreign Secretary said the UN must insist that Mr Hussein readmit weapons inspectors or both the organisation and Iraq would face the consequences.

He said the international community must not "stand by and do nothing" while Mr Hussein "persistently mocked" the authority of the UN by defying its resolutions on weapons of mass destruction.

The UN had to be clear to Baghdad and to itself of the "consequences which will flow from a failure by Iraq to meet its obligations", he said.