UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is heading to the US for talks with President George W Bush on building an international coalition for possible military action against Baghdad. The two leaders will meet at the US president's retreat, Camp David, to discuss what can be done to stop Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from developing and using weapons of mass destruction.

But while the UK Government has said the military option must not be ruled out, Mr Blair is also expected to urge Mr Bush to work through the United Nations Security Council to secure backing for tough action.

And this view could already be gaining some support in the Bush administration.

The Washington Post reports that the US president will leave open the possibility of a new round of UN weapons inspections when he addresses the UN next week.

Arab League General Secretary Amr Moussa has said that from his contacts with the Baghdad authorities he is optimistic a deal can be reached to allow the return of inspectors to Iraq.

Mr Moussa, who has warned that a strike on Iraq would "open the gates of hell", also said he believed Washington would not attack if the inspections resumed.

Ahead of their meeting, Mr Bush and Mr Blair have been trying to persuade the other permanent members of the Security Council, Russia, France and China, to support their stance on Iraq.

All three countries have raised doubts about the legal implications of going to war against Iraq and the effect it could have on stability in the Middle East.

Any one of them, as permanent Security Council members, could veto a UN resolution backing military action against Iraq.

Key speech

The meeting between Mr Bush and Mr Blair, which they insist is not a council of war, will test just how open the president is to working through the UN and to giving diplomacy one last chance.

The two men could decide to ask the UN to pass a resolution putting the onus firmly on Iraq to prove that it is not developing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

Mr Bush will address the UN General Assembly next Thursday - a year and a day after the attacks which triggered the war on terror.

The Washington Post says senior administration officials have told them that he plans to tell world leaders that unless they take quick, unequivocally strong action to disarm Iraq, the US will be forced to act on its own.

This suggests, the papers says, that White House officials have been persuaded that working through the UN is, at least for the moment, advisable.

Both the US and UK Governments say they have evidence that Iraq has biological and chemical weapons and the potential for a nuclear capability.

Mr Blair has promised to publish a dossier showing this in a few weeks' time.

Suspect buildings

On Friday, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad al-Duri, repeated his country's denials that it has such weapons.

"Iraq is clean," he told American television. "We no longer belong to this club of mass destruction weapons."

Suspicions were again raised after officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency on Friday said that satellite photos of Iraq showed unexplained construction at sites that UN inspection teams used to visit.

However, no conclusions could be drawn from this on whether Iraq had restarted nuclear weapons programmes, said a spokesman for the Vienna-based IAEA.

PHOTO CAPTION

British Prime Minister Tony Blair (R), pictured on September 3, strikes a similar pose to U.S. President George W. Bush, shown in Crawford, Texas in this 2001 file photo. Blair and Bush will meet at Camp David on September 7 to discuss Iraq. REUTERS/Larry Downing/Darren S