KENNESAW (USA), Feb 20: The UN Security Council, sharply divided over policy towards Baghdad, will receive a new resolution next week, paving the way for a possible US-led invasion of Iraq, a top US official said on Thursday.

“For the oppressed people of Iraq — people whose lives we care about — the day of freedom is drawing near,” President George Bush said during a brief stop here on his way to meet Spain’s prime minister at his Texas ranch.

The new initiative is expected to declare Iraq in “material breach” of the Nov 8 UN Security Council resolution, which warned Baghdad of “serious consequences” for failing to abandon its suspected weapons of mass destruction and dispatched UN inspectors to oversee the disarmament process.

“The tabling of the (second) resolution will take place next week,” a senior Bush administration official, who did not detail the measure’s wording, told reporters.

Permanent, veto-wielding council members France, China and Russia say the inspectors must have more time, while Washington says Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has shown he will never fully comply and must now be disarmed by force.

“The Security Council earlier on gave Saddam Hussein one final chance to disarm, and he’s throwing that chance away,” President Bush told a cheering crowd massed at Harrison High School to hear him defend his economic policy.

“Military action is this nation’s last option. Let me tell you what’s not an option: Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not an option,” he said, drawing applause and roars of support.

“Denial and endless delay in the face of growing danger is not an option. Leaving the lives and the security of the American people at the mercy of this dictator and his weapons of mass destruction, not an option,” he said.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer cited examples of Iraqi “defiance”, including its refusal of UN requests for lists of scientists tied to its weapons programmes and for evidence that it has destroyed arms stockpiles.

Mr Bush’s talks on Friday and Saturday with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar at his beloved Prairie Chapel ranch were part of a relentless diplomatic campaign to cement support for disarming Iraq by force.

Mr Aznar — whose country has a non-permanent UN Security Council seat — has unwaveringly supported Bush’s hardline approach to Iraq.

To pass, the new resolution needs the vote of at least nine of the Security Council’s 15 members, provided that none of the council’s permanent members vetoes it.

‘NO BLUFF’: Amid a diplomatic tussle with Turkey, which is holding up permission to base US troops on its soil, Mr Fleischer warned Ankara that Washington’s suggestion that it would deploy troops elsewhere was “not a bluff”.