The UK delegation at the UN is trying to prevent the US from introducing a UN Security Council resolution all but guaranteed to fail. The US wants a resolution that warns Iraq that any "failure" would result in military action. France and Russia view that language (correctly) as a naked attempt to seek justification for war.

Bush: "The UN delegation asked for Pepsi. They got Coke. This Iraqi failure cannot stand. Send in the bombs!"

Diplomats at UN headquarters in New York warned that an overly aggressive draft resolution could quickly doom all hope of seeing a return of the arms inspectors to Iraq. Such an outcome would have unprecedented diplomatic consequences and leave the US free to pursue war, giving Mr Blair an agonising dilemma over whether to join military action.

"The most crucial task is to get something that all five countries can agree on," one British source said last night. Britain hopes that agreement with the US can be reached by the weekend. A possible compromise is a text that makes it clear to Iraq that war will be the consequence of not co-operating over inspections but which does not seem to give America a pretext at the first sign of trouble. "In no way can it contain triggers that would allow one member state to rush off to war," one Western diplomat warned.