'West must stop 'evil' Saddam'

The West has a "very powerful moral case" for removing Saddam Hussein, President George Bush's national security adviser claimed today.

In one of the clearest signals yet that the US is preparing for war, Condoleezza Rice warned that Saddam was an "evil" figure who would "wreak havoc" if left unchecked.

"We certainly do not have the luxury of doing nothing," she said in remarks certain to be viewed with intense alarm by Labour's growing anti-war faction. Her stark warning could not have been farther away from claims by Foreign Office minister Mike O'Brien last week that action against Iraq was neither " imminent" nor "inevitable".

It was also being delivered amid reports that the US government had appealed for aid organisations to work inside and around Iraq, another clear sign it is preparing for military action.

Ms Rice is on the "hawkish" wing of the tight group of advisers around President Bush but is not an out-and-out hardliner in the same vein as Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. She told Radio 4 that Saddam was "an evil man who, left to his own devices, will wreak havoc again on his own population, his neighbours and, if he gets weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them, all of us".

Saddam had twice tried to get hold of nuclear weapons and had come much closer on each occasion than the West had first suspected, she said. His record of using chemical weapons on his own population was a "stunning indictment" against him, she argued.

Her words appeared to leave no room for any decision not to go to war. She said: "The President hasn't decided how he wants to do it or how he intends to make the case for particular methods, but by all means the case for regime change is very powerful. If Saddam Hussein is left in power doing the things he is doing now this is a threat that will emerge in a very big way.

"History is littered with cases of inaction that led to very grave consequences. How many dictators who ended up being a tremendous global threat and killing millions of people should we have stopped in their tracks?" It has been claimed recently that Tony Blair's resolve to support Mr Bush to the hilt has weakened - even though Downing Street has denied the Prime Minister is "wobbling" over Iraq.

Meanwhile one of Mr Blair's loyal followers warned of a massive rebellion in Labour ranks if the Government supports an American-led military attack.

Gerald Kaufman, the former shadow foreign secretary, said there was "substantial resistance" among mainstream Labour MPs - "not just from the usual suspects".

He spoke out after Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott confirmed yesterday that Mr Blair was unlikely to give MPs a chance to vote on the issue. About 150 Labour MPs have signed a Commons motion cautioning against military action, and even the Cabinet is thought to be split.

Mr Kaufman, Labour's foreign spokesman during the 1990 Gulf war which he supported, said his loyalty to the party leadership meant he would back the Government in any Commons vote on fresh action against Saddam's regime. But he predicted that with so many Labour rebels, the Prime Minister would be forced to rely on the Tories for a Commons majority.