US President George W Bush today prepared the American people for war, saying there was little prospect of Iraq disarming.
Ahead of tomorrow's crisis summit with Britain and Spain in the Atlantic Azores, Mr Bush used his weekly radio address to warn of "crucial days ahead for the free nations of the world".
"There is no doubt: we will confront a growing danger, to protect ourselves, to remove a patron and protector of terror, and to keep the peace of the world," he said.
The tone of comments from London were almost as grim. A spokesman for Number 10 said Prime Minister Tony Blair was still working hard on last-ditch diplomacy but Foreign Secretary Mr Jack Straw said war now looked "much more probable".
US officials said the summit on the Portuguese islands was not a war council but was aimed at increasing pressure on Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
Mindful of French and Russian intentions to veto an attempt to get a second United Nations Security Council resolution authorising an attack on Iraq, the officials said tomorrow mini-summit was a last chance for diplomacy and barring an 11th-hour compromise, the White House would quickly be shifting to a war footing.
Diplomats at the United Nations are now saying negotiations appear be all but over after Washington swiftly rejected a proposal by Chile to break the impasse over a second resolution.
Once diplomacy is exhausted, officials said, Bush would address his people, issuing what amounts to a final ultimatum to Saddam and giving aid workers and others time to leave Iraq.
UN weapons inspectors, overseeing missile dismantling in their fourth month of work, denied a gradual pull-out had begun.
"We are still continuing our work. Many inspectors are on short breaks in Cyprus and new inspectors are waiting to come to replace them," a spokesman said.
More US warships headed for the Gulf region today, where 250,000 US and British troops are poised to strike at Iraq.
But Turkey - a key participant in the 1991 Gulf War - dashed US hopes it would play a similar role in any new conflict as Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said his government would not move swiftly to approve US troop deployments.
In Iraq, thousands took part in government-organised marches to show their support for Saddam. "Bush, Bush, listen well; We all love Saddam Hussein!" chanted marchers in the capital.
Protesters shouting "Death to America, death to Israel" and "No to war, yes to peace" halted traffic in Yemen's capital.
In Washington, protest organisers said there was hope yet.
"Instead of a last-gasp effort before the bombs fall, we think there's still a possibility of affecting policy and stopping them altogether," said a spokesman.
Tomorrow, President Bush, President Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar will meet at the Lajes US air base on the Azores, hosted by Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manual Durao Barroso.
The three have been trying for weeks to build a nine-vote majority on the 15-nation Security Council for a resolution paving the way to war. But only one other council member, Bulgaria, has publicly backed them, while Russia has sided with France in threatening to veto any resolution.
France says it hopes the Azores meeting "can make genuine progress towards what we all wish for, namely towards seeing to it that Iraq is genuinely disarmed".
Some UN diplomats say the summit may decide to withdraw the resolution rather than risk the humiliation, and legal complications, of seeing it voted down.
President Bush has said he needs no UN backing for a war he portrays as defensive and that, even if he did, November's Resolution 1441 warning of "serious consequences" is sufficient.