Secretary of State Colin Powell was quoted on Friday as saying that Washington believed that by the end of January it will have been clearly proven that Iraq is not cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors. U.S. crude oil futures leapt to a two-year high of DLRS. 34 a barrel on Powell's comments. On January 27, when U.N. weapons inspectors are due to report back to the Security Council, Powell said each of the 15 members of the Council should be able to answer a simple question about whether Iraq was cooperating.

"The Council must be convinced that Iraq has disarmed... The most important question is how resolution 1441 is implemented. The Council must take the report and from that reach a judgment about the further work of the inspectors," he said.

"We believe a persuasive case will be there at the end of the month that Iraq is not cooperating," Powell told Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily in an interview issued ahead of publication on Saturday.

Powell noted that many nations believed a new Security Council resolution was necessary to justify a war and said the United States took these concerns seriously.

"But we have always made clear that the U.S. will act without a second resolution, if we are of the firm opinion that Iraq still has weapons of mass destruction or wants to produce new ones," he said.

"For this position of the United States, there is sufficient basis in international law which is supported by the breach of U.N. resolutions."

PROOF TO BE MADE AVAILABLE

"If you are looking for proof of weapons of mass destruction, I can show you pictures," Powell said. "In the coming days we will make information available that confirm our impression and our stance."

U.N. experts have carried out nearly 400 inspections since resuming work in Iraq in November after a four-year absence.

Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, are touring Paris and London to brief the two countries' leaders on the inspectors' hunt for banned weapons of mass destruction.

They have said they will confront Iraqi officials in talks in Baghdad on Sunday and Monday with big gaps in the 12,000-page weapons declaration Iraq handed the United Nations last month.

Powell said the Security Council would discuss how Blix and ElBaradei should proceed after January 27. "It could be that the Council asks both of them to present another report two weeks later," he said.

Blix said in Brussels on Thursday it was very likely the Security Council would ask for a further report in February.

PHOTO CAPTION

Secretary of State Colin Powell, right, accompanied by International Atomic Energy Agency Director Mohamed ElBaradei, talks to reporters outside the State Department in Washington Friday, Jan. 10, 2003 after their meeting to discuss the nuclear situations in Iraq and North Korea. (AP Photo/Susan