Bush prepares bid to remove Saddam

US General Tommy Franks, tipped to be commander of military action to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein, is to brief George Bush and US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld this week on "a concept of operations".

Mr Bush has told the CIA to do everything possible to remove Saddam from power, even if it means using special forces to capture or kill him. This is part of a new US doctrine of preempting threats from states that sponsor terrorism by the use of force, rather than containing or deterring them, as was the case during the Cold War.

"We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge," Mr Bush said. This change of doctrine and the new order to kill Saddam "in self-defence" - contrary to decades of official US policy - is popular on Capitol Hill, even among Democrats, but independent observers are uneasy about the reaction from America's allies.

Furthermore they fear that some countries could preemptively attack their enemies and use Mr Bush's new doctrine as justification.

Bill Clinton's former national security adviser, Sandy Berger, warned today that the new policy "provides for other countries ... a pretext to take what they would describe as preemptive action but we might describe as aggressive action against countries they see as threatening."

In the face of such doubts, Lady Thatcher warned in the Wall Street Journal: "I have detected a certain amount of wobbling about the need to remove Saddam Hussein, though not from President Bush.

"It is not surprising, given the hostility of many allies to this venture, that some in Washington may be having second thoughts." This is no time "to go wobbly", she said.

Military figures outside the US government warned that if Mr Bush does order an operation to capture Saddam, it must be carried out with secrecy and come as a "bolt from the blue" to his regime.