Baghdad: Iraq on September 23 urged the world to oppose a new disarmament resolution that the United States wants to push through the United Nations this week as a prelude to war on Baghdad.

"The international community should reject and oppose treacherous US efforts to make the UN Security Council adopt a new resolution," said 'Ath-Thawra' newspaper, mouthpiece of Iraq's ruling Baath party.

"There is no objective need or justification to adopt a new resolution and the overwhelming majority of the world's countries know this.

"They understand that the goal of such a resolution is to bypass Iraq's decision to accept the return of inspectors and sabotage its dialogue with the United Nations," the paper said.

Amid mounting US threats of military action, Iraq offered on September 16 to readmit UN arms inspectors after a near four-year break. But Washington is still pushing for a tough new Security Council resolution to disarm Baghdad.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said that a warning of "hard consequences" must be spelt out in the resolution. "Iraq must comply with the UN mandate or there will be decisive action to compel compliance," he said.

'Ath-Thawra' accused US President George W Bush's administration of seeking to "take any new UN resolution as an excuse to carry out a strike on Iraq".

"It wants to use the United Nations and the Security Council to give a false legitimacy to its threats and hostile plans as it has done in the past," the daily charged.

'Babel', the influential tabloid run by Saddam's elder son, Uday, said, "Bush's attempts to impose a new resolution on us shows that the US administration fears losing the allies that it has rallied one by one."

Dubbing the decision to accept the return of inspectors as a "painful blow to arrogant US policy (on Iraq)", Babel said that Washington has "started to increase pressure on and blackmail Russia, China, France and certain Arab countries" in a bid to win a new resolution.

Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan on September 22 called on the United Nations not to "serve as a platform" for a possible US military attack on Iraq.

"The United Nations should assume its role as an international organisation responsible for peace and security in the world by settling international conflicts through peaceful means," Ramadan said.