UNITED NATIONS, Jan 20: Key members of the UN Security Council on Monday offered widely divergent views on the process of Iraqi disarmament, one week before a critical report from weapons inspectors that could set the stage for military action.

The United States and Britain warned that time was running out for Baghdad to comply with disarmament demands, but China said the inspectors needed more time to do their work and that the Jan 27 report was not an end to the process but rather a new beginning.

Germany said bluntly that it would not support any use of force to compel Iraq to disarm fearing “disastrous consequences” of war in comments later savaged by US Secretary of State Colin Powell who said the United Nations could not remain “impotent” in the face of Baghdad’s defiance.

“We cannot be shocked into impotence because we are afraid of the difficult choices that are ahead of us,” Powell told the council, which was meeting in special session to discuss the global war on terrorism.

“However difficult the road ahead may be with respect to Iraq, we must not shrink from the need to travel down that road,” he said.

“Hopefully there will be a peaceful solution, but if Iraq does not come into full compliance, we must not shrink from the responsibilities that we set before ourselves when we adopted 1441 on a unanimous basis,” Powell said.

Resolution 1441 demands that Iraq dismantle its weapons of mass destruction or face “serious consequences” that the United States insists can include military action.

Earlier, German Foreign Joschka Fischer said Berlin would reject the use of force because it could destabilize the Middle East and hamper the anti-terror campaign.

“These are fundamental reasons for our rejection of military action,” Fischer said.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Iraq was exhausting the patience of the international community.

“There has to come a moment when our patience runs out, and we are now near to that point with Iraq,” he said.

Before the meeting, Straw told reporters that Britain would not pre-judge the inspectors’ Jan 27 report, but stressed that “time is running out for Saddam Hussein”.

But China took the exact opposite stance as Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan said the inspections were proceeding apace and that the United Nations should give the teams more time to complete their work.

“I believe this report actually is not a full stop of the inspection work but rather a new beginning,” he said.

“The two people in charge of the bodies (say) there is more work to do in terms of the inspections and they need more time,” Tang said. “I think we should respect their opinions and support their work.”—AFP