Powell: US must justify attack

The US Secretary of State is seeking to form an alliance with Tony Blair by persuading President George Bush that he must demonstrate to the world the danger which Saddam poses.

President Bush is also understood to have been warned by Nelson Mandela that he will destroy the United Nations if he begins an attempt to oust Saddam without UN approval.

Mr Powell, the leading dove urging restraint in President Bush’s cabinet, has given an interview to the BBC - to be broadcast next week - explaining his concerns about Iraq.

In an extract shown yesterday, he made clear he does not agree with hawks in the administration like Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary and Dick Cheney, the vice-president, who say the US could go it alone.

"I think that the world has to be presented with the information and with the intelligence that's available," Mr Powell said in the interview.

"A debate is needed within the international community so that everybody can make a judgment about this."

Mr Powell, who was chief of the US armed forces during the Gulf War, went on to say that bitter divisions in Capitol Hill over attacking Iraq has handicapped the US in the propaganda war.

"Too much attention has focused on the position of the US - what debate is taking place within our administration - as opposed to attention being focused on the Iraqi regime," he says.

Mr Powell’s proposal reinforces attempts being made by Downing Street to persuade President Bush to produce an Iraq dossier similar to the file Mr Blair produced before the Afghanistan campaign.

His emphasis on international opinion also joins with efforts the Prime Minister has made to stress the importance of a new coalition. Downing Street believes this is best accomplished by asking the United Nations for some form of approval. This is seen as the only hope of building any coalition against Saddam.

It emerged last night that Mr Mandela has already made this point to Mr Bush directly, urging restraint and saying the UN system will lose all credibility if its laws are violated by Washington.

The former president of South Africa is also understood to be hoping to meet Mr Blair today, and will give him the same warning.

The Prime Minister’s aides said last night that he is "always ready to talk to Nelson".

Reports of Mr Mandela’s conversation with Mr Bush appeared to have originated from Mr Blair’s camp. This suggested a co-ordinated attempt to bounce the president into a taking a calmer line.

Mr Blair has so far refused to follow Mr Bush in calling for change in Iraq - regardless of whether Saddam Hussein allows weapons inspectors back into the country.

The Prime Minister has said only that the "world would be a better place" without Saddam, but has stopped short of calling for the Iraqi president to be forcibly removed from power.

Iain Duncan Smith urged Mr Blair to take a harder line and point out to the British public the "clear and growing danger" which Saddam represented.

"The next generation of Iraqi missiles will be able to reach the whole of Europe as well as the Indian subcontinent," the Tory leader wrote in a newspaper.

Mr Duncan Smith is seeking to line up with Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld in saying that pre-emptive strike against Hussein is now an imperative.

In a speech to war veterans last week, Mr Cheney said there is now no point in sending UN weapons inspectors back into Iraq as Saddam will have become too adept at hiding his arsenal. Tareq Aziz, Iraq’s deputy prime minister, said in an interview with CNN news yesterday that there is no evidence to support Mr Cheney’s charge.

"They are telling wrongly that Iraq is reproducing weapons of mass destruction," he said. "That’s not true. We are ready to prove it. We are ready to prove it by technical, viable means."

Mr Blair is understood to have been advised that providing evidence to justify a military strike on Iraq could head off much of the criticism he is facing at home. Next week, he will meet the TUC - where delegates are expected to denounce his support for the US.

Bill Morris, the head of the TGWU union, called for evidence yesterday. "My message to the Prime Minister is that whatever decision is to be taken at the end of the debate has got to be based on real, incontrovertible evidence. That has not yet been seen," he said.

Tom Clarke, the Coatbridge and Chryston MP who was formerly an arts minister in Mr Blair’s last government, said that Labour back-benchers may never be persuaded.

"I believe that the Parliamentary Labour Party, like myself, doesn’t have the stomach for a war against Iraq," he said. "We understood the arguments about Afghanistan, the guilt there was clear, it was necessary to get to the people who were responsible for 11 September. That isn’t the case with Iraq."