The United States vowed yesterday to start pounding Iraq hard within weeks if diplomacy failed, despite forswearing use of strike aircraft based in Saudi Arabia.
The US Defence Secretary, Mr William Cohen, told reporters aboard an aircraft taking him to see Saudi Arabia's King Fahd that he was not seeking permission to launch air strikes from Saudi soil.
Mr Cohen said neighbouring Kuwait and Bahrain were willing to let the US attack Iraq from their territories. In addition, the US and Britain have a combined total of three aircraft carriers in the Gulf carrying more than 100 planes.
The US commander in the Gulf, Gen Anthony Zinni, has decided he can accomplish his goals "with the forces that are now there or will be there in the foreseeable future", Mr Cohen said.
In an effort to step up military pressure on President Saddam Hussein, Mr Cohen signed orders on Saturday night sending more than 40 additional warplanes to the region, 19 of them attack fighters and bombers.
President Clinton spoke by telephone with King Fahd on Saturday to discuss "how seriously we view the situation", a White House spokesman said yesterday. Mr Clinton told King Fahd "we would continue to consult with him closely as we consider what to do," the spokesman said.
"We are now talking about a substantial strike," the US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, said yesterday. "There are those people who have said, `Is it going to be a pinprick?' The answer is a resounding `No'."
Asked on the CBS programme, Face the Nation, if a threatened US air strike would be substantial, sustained and heavy, she replied, "It will be all those things," if diplomacy failed.
The English-language paper, Arab News, yesterday quoted the Saudi Defence Minister, Prince Sultan, as saying: "We'll not agree and we are against striking Iraq as a people and as a nation."
Ms Albright, when asked how much time Mr Saddam had left, said: "It's not days and it's not months - it's in the weeks category. We want to make sure that we have explored all the diplomatic options."
The US ambassador to the UN, Mr Bill Richardson, played down opposition to the use of force by UN Security Council members France, Russia and China.
"There's a little daylight between us and those (countries) you mentioned, but we think in the end we can narrow those differences," he said.
Later, on the CNN programme, Late Edition, Mr Richardson said the US believes France is "going to be with us" in the end if diplomacy failed.
Today Mr Richardson will join British diplomats in lobbying the 15-member Security Council for a resolution that would declare Iraq in "material breach" of council resolutions ordering the elimination of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
Gen Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of US forces in the 1991 Gulf war, said yesterday Mr Saddam may be prepared to absorb a US military strike in the hope it would lead to ending the sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
If the Gulf War coalition splintered over US-led military action, "he may not mind a big strike. He may say `it's worth taking a big strike if I can get the sanctions lifted', " Gen Schwarzkopf said on NBC's Meet The Press.
Outside the White House yesterday, several dozen demonstrators organised by an ArabAmerican anti-discrimination group protested against US Iraq policy. "Mr Clinton, Make Love Not War", one protest sign stated.
Iraq and Russia appeal to Annan; Saudi Defence Minister rebuffs US on military action; Kuwaitis begin panic-buying: page 14