Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal will discuss Iraq here with President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell during a hastily arranged visit, two US officials said.Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, may also be present Thursday when al-Faisal talks about efforts to disarm Baghdad with Bush at the White House, said one of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.The meeting, which was not formally announced and did not appear on the US leader's official schedule, seemed to have been hastily arranged.

It comes as Bush is stepping up a diplomatic offensive to rally support around the idea that it may be necessary to use force to strip Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein of any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

Al-Faisal said Tuesday in Paris that a solution to the Iraq crisis must be found to avoid a "calamity."

"We all hope for a possibility of a solution that avoids the dismemberment and maintains the territorial integrity of Iraq," Saud said after meeting French President Jacques Chirac.

The meeting comes a day after Powell for the first time said that the United States willing to help arrange exile for Saddam, whose ouster is official US policy.

Powell, who is to present new evidence of Iraq's continuing violations of UN requirements to the Security Council next Wednesday, said Washington was prepared to help find a place of exile for Saddam and his family to avoid war.

"If he were to leave the country and take some of his family members with him and others in the elite who have been responsible for so much trouble during the course of his regime, we would, I am sure, try to help find a place for them to go," he said.

"That certainly would be one way to avoid war," Powell told reporters at a joint State Department news conference with visiting Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri.

US officials have said in the past they would look favorably on Saddam's exile but have never before said they were willing to actively assist in an endeavor to convince him to accept such a move.

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Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal