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US S ecretary of State Colin Powell's presentation Wednesday to the UN Security Council apparently failed to budge world opinion on Iraq, with most countries reaffirming their earlier positions.

In testimony before the Security Council, Powell said Iraq had failed the disarmament tests laid down in Council resolutions and had failed to seize the one last chance it had been given to avoid war.

The four other veto-bearing members of the Security Council stood by their earlier statements, with Britain supporting the US position, France opposing it and Russia and China urging for UN inspectors to be given more time.

Britain, the staunchest US supporter, said February 14 would be the crunch moment in the Iraq crisis.

"This council will have further reports from the inspectors on Friday week. If non-cooperation continues, this council must meet its responsibilities," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told the UN Security Council in New York.

France, one of the most vociferous opponents to US policy on Iraq, reaffirmed its opposition to early military action, but did not rule it out altogether if it was approved by the Security Council.

French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said Paris' position remained the same.

"There is no change in the French position, no change at all," Raffarin told AFP on arrival in the southern Indian city of Bangalore at the start of a three-day official visit to India.

"We want the inspectors to work well in Iraq. We do not want war. We believe there are other ways of destroying weapons than war. War is only the last resort. We are committed to absolutely every process to prevent war."
China and Russia called for the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq to continue their work.

Powell's presentation "indicates that the activities of the international inspectors in Iraq must be continued," said Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.

Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan called on the United States to hand over the intelligence used in the briefing to the inspectors.

While British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Powell's presentation had served to "lay bare the deceit" of Saddam's regime, Britain's press was roughly split on the new evidence.

Right-leaning broadsheets The Daily Telegraph and The Times together with the mass-circulation tabloid The Sun said Powell's speech had firmed up the case against Iraq.

But The Daily Mirror tabloid called Powell's delivery "a piece of dramatic theatre".

"Dodgy tapes, grainy videos, great rhetoric, but where's the proof Colin?" read the paper's front page headline.

Meanwhile Australia, one of the staunchest supporters of military action, said Powell's presentation amounted to "cast iron" evidence that Saddam was misleading inspectors.

"The material that Secretary of State Powell has released shows a deeply disturbing pattern of deceit by Saddam Hussein's regime," Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said here.

"There is no question that Iraq is endeavouring to circumvent Security Council resolutions ... it's trying to frustrate the work of the inspectors instead of cooperating fully with the inspectors which it's required to do by the Security Council," he said.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said the speech had deepened suspicions over Iraq's claim that it does not possess weapons of mass destruction.

"Suspicions over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program have deepened," Koizumi told the lower house budget committee.

"We must act in a responsible manner as a US ally," he said after watching the presentation from Tokyo.

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said it now looked more likely that there would be "catastrophic consequences with or without UN Security Council approval".

Clark said Powell's presentation was "pretty good evidence" and added that New Zealand was prepared to send troops to help rebuild post-war Iraq if requested by the UN.

In Europe, 10 Central and Eastern European nations and NATO aspirants lined up behind the United States, saying in a joint statement it was now clear that Baghdad was breaching UN disarmament resolutions.

Iraq is in material breach of UN Security Council Resolutions, including UN Resolution 1441..." the foreign ministers of Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia said - Sapa-AFP

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