WASHINGTON, Jan 30: The White House warned on Thursday that its campaign to disarm Iraq peacefully would last just “weeks, not months” and said vast US troop deployments to the Gulf may convince Saddam Hussein to seek exile.

With US forces near Iraq reaching critical mass, US President George Bush ramped up consultations with world leaders a week before Secretary of State Colin Powell presents new evidence against Baghdad to the UN Security Council.

“The president is using this window now to engage in very busy and active diplomacy. This will take place in a period of weeks, not months,” said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

“Let’s hope it (exile) happens, but plans are being made on the likelihood that it won’t,” said Fleischer. “There’s only one person who knows the answer, and that’s Saddam Hussein.”

Fleischer said Saddam Hussein’s exile would be “very helpful” but would not say whether the United States took talk of such an outcome seriously or was making any preparations to facilitate it.

As part of his diplomatic campaign, Mr Bush welcomes British Prime Minister Tony Blair — his most stalwart ally on Iraq — to Camp David on Friday, five days before Mr Powell goes before the UN Security Council.

Mr Blair has steadfastly backed Bush’s line on Iraq, even though he faces heavy pressure at home against possible war and must contend with France and Germany’s resistance to military action.

In a harshly worded attack on France, Germany, and former South African president Nelson Mandela — who says Bush is only after Iraq’s oil — Fleischer accused Bush’s critics of looking the other way while a “holocaust” brewed.

“The president will understand there are going to be people who are more comfortable doing nothing about a growing menace that can turn into a holocaust,” he said.

Speaking at the opening of a three-day International Women’s Forum in Johannesburg, Mr Mandela charged that Bush and Blair were “undermining the United Nations” and assailed Washington’s “arrogant behaviour”.—AFP