US Secretary of State Colin Powell told the world Wednesday that Iraq was doing everything to hide its weapons of mass destruction as he pressed the US case for tough action to disarm Saddam Hussein.

Laying new evidence at a crucial session of the UN Security Council, he called on council members to say "enough" to what he described as Iraq's 12 years of defiance of international attempts to destroy its chemical and biological weapons since the Gulf War.

Powell did not explicitly call for military action but stressed that UN resolution 1441 passed on November 8 allowed for "serious consequences" and said leaving Iraq with weapons of mass destruction "is not an option".

The United States has faced opposition from other leading nations to its warning that it will lead a "coalition of the willing" to disarm Iraq.

But Powell said: "We must not shrink from whatever is ahead of us. We must not fail in our duty and our responsibilities."
He showed the crucial meeting satellite images of suspected arms plants in Iraq and played recordings of officials, using information from "people who have risked their lives to let the world know what Saddam Hussein is really up to." "Saddam Hussein's inhumanity knows no limits," Powell told the landmark meeting of foreign ministers and ambassadors from the 15 council members and Iraq's UN ambassador. He said there was a "sinister nexus" between Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist group.

He charged that Baghdad had maintained active links with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, using its embassy in Pakistan as a "liaison office." Powell also outlined US details on Iraq's chemical and biological weapons arsenal and how it has been hidden from UN weapons inspectors who have been there since November.

Powell said there was a "decade of proof" that Iraq was trying to develop nuclear weapons, saying "Saddam Hussein is determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb."
"Iraq's behavior demonstrates that Saddam Hussein and his regime have made no effort -- no effort -- to disarm as required by the international community," Powell told the council.

"Indeed, the facts and Iraq's behavior show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction."
Powell said Iraqi officials hid correspondence on military industrialisation, ordered the removal of banned weapons from key sites and hid prohibited items in their homes.

He charged that "Iraq's record on chemical weapons is replete with lies."
"Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets," said Powell, who was flanked by George Tenet, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency.

"Saddam Hussein has investigated dozens of biological agents causing diseases such as gas gangrene, plague, typhus, tetanus, cholera, camelpox and hemorrhagic fever, and he also has the wherewithal to develop smallpox."
Iraq had declared 8,500 liters of anthrax, but Powell said UN experts estimated that Iraq could have produced 25,000 liters.

He played two audiotapes of intercepted conversations between Iraqi officials that he said provided incriminating evidence of Baghdad's intent to deceive the inspectors.

The tapes, he said, were not "isolated incidents, but part and parcel of a policy of evasion and deception decided at the highest levels of the regime."
"We know that Saddam Hussein has what is called quote, 'a higher committee for monitoring the inspections teams,' unquote.

"Think about that. Iraq has a high-level committee to monitor the inspectors who were sent in to monitor Iraq's disarmament," he added.

The United States is seeking to convince sceptical members of the UN Security Council to back military action against Iraq.

France, Russia and China have called for giving UN weapons inspectors more time to complete their work in Iraq.

The UN Security Council passed resolution 1441 on November 8 giving Iraq a final chance to comply with disarmament resolutions or face "serious consequences".

Addressing the sceptics, Powell said: "No council member present in voting on that day had any illusions about the nature and intent of the resolution or what serious consequences meant if Iraq did not comply." "The issue before us is not how much time we are willing to give the inspectors to be frustrated by Iraqi obstruction. But how much longer are we willing to put up with Iraq's non-compliance before we, as a council, we, as the United Nations say: "Enough. Enough".

Powell made a new warning that the United Nations would become "irrelevant" if it did not take action. The United States has said it will lead its own coalition against Iraq if the United Nations did not act.

Iraq made a 12,000 page declaration of its weapons programmes to the United Nations on December 7. But UN weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei have said there was nothing new in the report and that Iraq must cooperate more.

Powell highlighted how Blix told the Security Council on January 27 that: "Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it."
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the chief UN weapons inspectors were also present at the meeting -Sapa-AFP.