LONDON/BAGHDAD, Feb 3: US Secretary of State Colin Powell pledged on Monday to provide “straightforward, sober and compelling” proof this week that Iraq was hiding banned weapons from United Nations inspectors in violation of UN demands.

Baghdad has already dismissed the evidence. “They won’t be really proof, they will be fabricated space and aerial photos,” Hussam Mohammad Amin, head of Iraq’s National Monitoring Directorate, said on Sunday.

In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece two days before he speaks to the UN Security Council, Powell wrote that although there was still no “smoking gun”, the world must recognise Iraq had flouted the will of the international community.

Mr Powell was backed up by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Washington’s main ally in its drive to force Baghdad to give up banned weapons peacefully or by force.

Striking a conciliatory but firm note towards other European allies, many of them sceptical of US intentions, Powell promised Washington would try to bridge differences and fully consult its partners before any decision to go to war.—Reuters