US forces are ready to attack Iraq as soon as President George W. Bush gives the word, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, as Turkey was considering Friday whether to allow US troops to launch an offensive from its soil.

A new draft resolution by Britain and the United States, giving the international green light for conflict, could be presented at the United Nations as early as Monday, according to British press reports.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell promised that US military control after the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein would be as brief as possible and the country would then revert to civilian rule.

And French President Jacques Chirac, who was to hold talks with his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak on the Iraq crisis, reaffirmed his opposition to a military solution to the problem.

Speaking on US television, Rumsfeld described the US and British forces amassed in the Gulf as "ample" but declined to discuss numbers, which are believed to be around 150,000.

"We are at a point where, if the president makes that decision (to attack), the department of defense is prepared and has the capabilities and the strategy to do that," Rumsfeld said.

Rumsfeld stressed that going to war was "the last choice."

"There still is at least a remote possibility that (President Hussein) could decide to leave the country at some point," he added.

Bush's first choice for how Iraq should disarm was that it be done voluntarily, Rumsfeld explained. "His second choice would be that (Saddam's) regime leaves – voluntarily or involuntarily. And the last choice would be that the regime has to be thrown out."

Washington was waiting to hear whether Turkey would allow the deployment of its troops in return for a financial package amounting to some 26 billion dollars (24 billion euros) in grants and loans.

The Ankara government, meanwhile, was reportedly drafting a bill to that effect which would probably be submitted to parliament early next week.

Prime Minister Abdullah Gul hinted that a parliamentary vote would soon be held on the issue, saying "a result will be achieved in the coming days."

Turkey, a NATO member and key ally in the 1991 Gulf War, has been digging in its heels, holding out for more US cash in return for the use of its strategic bases, ports and territory in a war with its southeastern neighbor.

The newspaper Hurriyet said Ankara "wants the money up front, before the war starts", quoting an unnamed government official.

"We're not waiting until (the US) Congress approves the financial aid," said the official. "The cash has to be injected when the first shot is fired to calm the markets."

A public announcement by Gul was expected later Friday to explain his decision after having talked with top US officials.

The Times of London floated next Monday as the likely date for London and Washington to present a second UN resolution, but a Security Council meeting to vote on the proposal was expected to come no earlier than March 7 and no later than March 14.

Other papers in the British capital were touting March 14 – the day France had hoped to convene a further Council meeting – as a likely US- and Britain-imposed deadline for Iraq, which would give Saddam 21 days to disarm or face war.

Powell, speaking to the Arabic-language Al-Arabiya news channel, said a military commander would be placed in initial charge of Iraq after Saddam had been dismissed.

"It is not our goal to destroy Iraq," he said. "It is our goal to remove a regime that we believe has wasted the people's treasure on weapons of mass destruction."

Chirac reaffirmed France's opposition to war, saying in Paris at the end of a Franco-African summit: "As things stand today, everything points to the need for (disarmament) to be achieved through peaceful means... and not by a military route."

Germany threw a spanner into the international works, though, when Defense Minister Peter Struck warned that Berlin could withdraw its troops from the international security force in Afghanistan if a conflict in Iraq escalated tensions in the region.

In Kuala Lumpur, Arab states shot down an Iraqi proposal for the 114-nation Non-Aligned Movement to condemn countries hosting US troops ahead of a possible invasion. "That paragraph has been deleted because it is an internal issue for certain states," said a United Arab Emirates delegate.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw claimed the standoff over Iraq was entering its "final phase".

"As the standoff enters its final phase my message today is in securing Iraq's disarmament we will remove the threat Saddam poses to his neighbours and to the wider world," Straw told the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London.

"We will affect a decisive shift in the fortunes of the long suffering Iraqi people and we will have reasserted the authority of the international rule of law."AFP