Britain insisted its Sunday summit with the United States and Spain would not be a council of war and would consider whether a peaceful solution to the Iraq  crisis might yet be found. Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown said there was a legal basis for going to war with or without a new U.N. resolution. The meeting of President Bush , Britain's Tony Blair  and Spanish premier Jose Maria Aznar would consider whether to keep pursuing that resolution or not, he added.

"The issue about the resolution is of course one of the subjects being discussed this afternoon," Brown told BBC Television. "I believe there are options still available to us and these will be discussed today with President Bush...to see if we can resolve this issue without military action."

The three leaders meet for an emergency summit on Iraq in the Azores islands in the Atlantic later on Sunday.

It has been billed as a last chance for diplomacy as key U.N. powers threaten to block a new resolution authorizing war.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the leaders would "see whether it is possible for there to be a final diplomatic push for a peaceful resolution." He told BBC Television there were still chances to avoid war although the point was nearing where all diplomatic options would have been exhausted.

He floated the idea of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein  fleeing into exile to avert war. That offer may figure prominently in the Azores later in the day.

"Saddam can also ensure a peaceful solution to this crisis, not least by leaving the country and going into exile," Straw said.

"We've already offered him exile and immunity from the kind of prosecution he should certainly suffer."

Washington, London and Madrid have been trying for weeks to gather the needed nine votes on the 15-nation Security Council for a resolution paving the way to war, but only one other council member, Bulgaria, has publicly backed them.

Some U.N. diplomats say the summit trio may decide to withdraw their draft resolution rather than risk the humiliation, and legal complications, of seeing it rejected.

Brown said there were no legal problems either way.

"The legal authority comes back to a series of resolutions passed over a long period of time," he said. "The government would not be acting the way it is... unless it was satisfied there is a legal basis for military action."

France, Russia and Germany -- leading opponents of a rush to war -- have called for foreign ministers to convene a meeting of the Security Council on Tuesday after weapons inspectors report to the council on what Iraq must do to meet disarmament demands.

PHOTO CAPTION

British Prime Minister Tony Blair  makes a press statement at his London residence No.10 Downing Street, March 14, 2003. Blair on March 15 worked the phones in a last-ditch round of international diplomacy over Iraq  but his foreign secretary warned that war now looked 'much more probable.' (Richard Lewis/Pool via Reuter