LONDON, Aug 15: The West must take action to see “evil” Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein removed from power, US President George Bush’s national security adviser said on Thursday.

Speaking about the Middle East on BBC radio, Condoleezza Rice said there was a “very powerful moral case” for ousting the Iraqi leader.

“This is an evil man who, left to his own devices, will wreak havoc again on his own population, his neighbours and, if he gets weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them, all of us,” she said.

“There is a very powerful moral case for regime change,” she added. “We certainly do not have the luxury of doing nothing.”

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is Bush’s closest ally in Europe on the Iraq question, despite opinion polls which suggest that a majority of Britons do not want British troops to join a US-led strike on Baghdad.

Last week, during a visit to Libya, Blair’s minister for Middle East affairs, Mike O’Brien, said war was neither imminent nor inevitable.

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Rice said the United States has been “doing everything that we can to sort out” the situation.

Bush’s “very aggressive vision” for the Middle East has pushed forward the idea of a two-state solution, she said.

“But for it to work, it needs a Palestinian leadership ready to grapple with terrorism.” she said in a clear critical reference to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

“Of course it’s up to the Palestinians to decide who they want to lead them,” she said. “It’s up to the Palestinians to understand too that there are consequences to leadership that is in bed with terrorists.”

On Iran, which Bush says is part of an “axis of evil” together with Iraq and North Korea, Rice indicated that Washington is hopeful that political change might come from within.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that we are concerned that Iran is a place where an unelected few are really crushing the aspirations of their people,” she said.

“And so what we’re saying to the Iranians is: act like elected leaders. These unelected few should not be permitted to hijack the aspirations of the Iranian people.”

“But it’s very clear that Iran is not on the side of peace,” she said. “Iran is on the side of the terrorists in the way that these unelected few have been carrying out the policy of the Iranian government.”

On whether Washington wanted to see “regime change” in Iran, Rice said: “I believe that what you’re seeing in different parts of the world is that there are different means to the same end.”

“And there is the possibility of expression in Iran that we hope will be respected, particularly by those who were elected,” she said. —AFP