US President George W Bush & UK Prime Minister Tony Blair indicated on Monday they had no set timetable for war. Both countries have been increasing their military presence in the Gulf. Mr. Bush said the US and its allies will disarm Iraq by force if it fails to comply with the UN teams searching for evidence of weapons of mass destruction.

A spokesman for the US president said on Monday that Mr. Bush thought it important that the inspectors had time to do their jobs.

"The president has not put an exact timetable on [action]," he said.

Britain's Tony Blair said he would expect members of the UN to act if Iraq was shown to be continuing to ignore UN demands. He said he had "no doubt" that Saddam Hussein was attempting to rebuild his alleged nuclear, biological and chemical weapons arsenal. But he said he did not want to impose an "arbitrary timescale" on if and when action should be taken.

Inspectors Need More Time

Weapons inspectors have started to use Western intelligence data to search suspicious sites in Iraq.

But Hans Blix, the head of the United Nations team, told the BBC he could not be certain he would be given enough time to declare Iraq clear of weapons of mass destruction - and thereby avert war.

Last month Mr. Blix complained in a BBC interview of a lack of support for the inspectors from the US and UK who, he said, were not sharing their best intelligence.

Some of that information has now been made available, he said, and as a result new sites had been inspected.

Mr. Blix's colleague, Mohamed ElBaradei, has warned that inspectors still need "a few months" for their work.

Mr. Blix will make a key further report to the UN Security Council on 27 January and some have said that could be used as a deadline for the United States to start military action against Iraq. 

ElBaradei, in Paris for meetings with top French officials, said his inspectors "still need a few months to achieve our mission" but the time frame will depend on Baghdad's willingness to supply documents, allow U.N. inspectors to interview Iraqi scientists and show physical evidence of what facilities and weapons have been destroyed.

Military Deployment & Training Stepped Up

But while the US and UK continue their military build-up, defence chiefs insist they have no start date for war.

A BBC correspondent says the deployments could simply give the US more options - by being ready to launch a war before the punishing heat of the Iraq summer but not being committed to it.

On the Iraqi Kuwaiti border in Southern Kuwait, U.S. Army troops sorted out enemy fighters from friendly civilians in training exercises Monday designed to help them with one of the most dangerous forms of combat they could face in Iraq - urban warfare.

After conducting sweeping tank maneuvers a month ago, the soldiers worked out tactics for taking buildings room by room - deciding in a split-second whether people inside should be killed.

The desert-tested soldiers of the 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division are being joined by tens of thousands more troops as President Bush ponders whether to invade Iraq.

U.S. military planners believe Saddam Hussein might forgo battle in the open desert and instead fall back to Baghdad.

Concentrating his defenses in urban areas would put U.S. troops in more danger and risk massive civilian casualties if air power is brought to bear.

PHOTO CAPTION

The U.S. Army has alerted more than 10,000 part-time troops to prepare for active duty and movement overseas beginning as early as this week to support a U.S. military build-up near Iraq, Army officials said on Monday. (Reuters Graphic)
- Jan 06 10:39 AM ET