BAGHDAD - Europe moved to stay America's hand over Iraq on Friday, as top officials spoke out against a rush to war on the basis of inconclusive weapons inspections.

"Without proof, it would be very difficult to start a war," the European Union's foreign policy coordinator Javier Solana told French newspaper Le Monde.

One of President Saddam Hussein's main Iraqi enemies also urged against an invasion and warned that the sort of occupying force Washington envisages would face broad, armed resistance.

"We reject the idea of an invasion and occupation of Iraqi territory," said Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).

After U.N. inspectors told the Security Council on Thursday they had found no "smoking gun" to challenge Iraq's insistence it has no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, Washington made clear it still felt Baghdad was defying the United Nations.

With the world's eyes turning to North Korea, which has admitted developing nuclear weapons and pulled out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty on Friday, U.S. officials insisted Iraq posed a major threat, however little the inspections found.

"The problem with guns that are hidden is you can't see their smoke," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said on Thursday. "We know for a fact that there are weapons there."

Chief inspector Hans Blix told the Security Council Iraq had "failed to answer a great many questions."

U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said Iraq was deceiving the U.N. and if it continued it would again be in "material breach" of the latest Council resolution, language that could mean war.

In Iraq, U.N. experts visited three sites on Friday, including a rocket fuel plant that Britain has alleged may be developing missiles to carry chemical or germ warheads.

EUROPE HESITANT

The United States is building a large military force of more than 100,000 troops in the Gulf region.

But the European Union's executive head, European Commission President Romano Prodi, called for renewed efforts to avoid war.

"War is not and must not be inevitable. We all have to do everything we can to find a peaceful solution to the crisis," he said in Greece, which holds the Union's rotating presidency and has said it will lead an EU peace mission to Arab capitals soon.

The 15 EU nations are sharply divided over Iraq. Britain is mobilizing its forces alongside the Americans despite widespread disquiet within Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour party.

The bloc's other main military power, France, is cooler, insisting on an international mandate for any war. Germany, the biggest economy, is opposed outright the idea of attacking Iraq.

"Inspections should continue and for that reason there are no grounds for military action," Berlin's ambassador to the United Nations, Gunter Pleuger, said in New York.

Britain's envoy, too, suggested there was no undue focus on Blix's next report to the Council on January 27: "The 27th of January won't necessarily produce anything new or dramatic," said Jeremy Greenstock. "So my advice is -- calm down."

Washington has little need of European military assistance and has made clear it is willing to fight alone if need be.

SHI'ITE LEADER OPPOSED

In Iraq's neighbor Turkey, a key NATO ally which houses U.S. bases, Prime Minister Abdullah Gul wrote to Baghdad urging Iraq to comply with U.N. resolutions to avert a conflict.

But further away, another close U.S. ally, Australia, said it might send troops to the Middle East in the coming weeks.

Shi'ite leader Hakim, whose movement counts thousands of fighters in the south, told al-Hayat newspaper an attack could upset the entire region and urged the U.N. and Arab bodies to concentrate instead on persuading Saddam to step aside.

Washington has sketched plans for a post-Saddam Iraq that it says would be the most ambitious since the occupation of Germany and Japan after World War II. Critics portray that as a grab for Iraq's vast oil wealth and say it could get bogged down in the ethnically and religiously divided nation of 23 million.

"We reject the appointment of a foreign military ruler in Iraq and also reject a foreign power imposing any ruler," said Hakim, whose group has held discussions with U.S. officials. "Such an occupation would naturally face violent resistance."

Copyright 2003 Reuters Ltd

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