WILLIAMSBURG (USA), Feb 8: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned the United States on Saturday against attacking Iraq on its own, arguing collective action under a UN umbrella would have greater legitimacy and better odds of success.

In an address marking the anniversary of a college, Mr Annan also stressed that force should be used only as a last resort.

But if the UN security council concludes, after a key report by UN inspectors due on Friday, that Iraq is not disarming as required by council resolutions, “the council must face up to its responsibilities”, he said.

“This is an issue not for any one state alone, but for the international community as a whole,” Annan said. “When states decide to use force, not in self-defence but to deal with broader threats to international peace and security, there is no substitute for the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations security council,” he said.

“When there is strong US leadership, exercised through patient diplomatic persuasion and coalition-building, the United Nations is successful — and the United States is successful,” he said. “The United Nations is most useful to all its members, including the US, when it is united and works as a source of collective action rather than discord,” he said.

Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, the college’s chancellor, also endorsed UN diplomacy as the appropriate approach to the crisis in Iraq in brief remarks.

The US administration has argued it needs no further action by the security council to disarm Iraq by force under Resolution 1441, adopted on Nov 8 and other resolutions.

But Mr Bush has left open the door to an additional council measure authorizing military action, although it is far from clear at this time that such a measure could garner the necessary nine votes and no vetoes in the 15-nation council to be adopted.—Reuters