UN to upset Bush's war plans with one-year deadline for Iraq

The United Nations is likely to throw into disarray America's war plans for Iraq by introducing a timetable for weapons inspections that could give Saddam Hussein a breathing space of almost 12 months.

The extended timetable, which would allow the inspectors first to deploy in Iraq and then to begin and complete their complicated mission, could exhaust the patience of Washington, which envisages attacking the country much earlier, probably in February. Yesterday the Bush administration asked Congress to endorse the military option before the UN makes its move.

President Bush "reserves the right to act in the interests of the United States and its friends and allies", his spokesman said.

Such a disavowal of the United Nations by the United States would spell both war and diplomatic disaster for the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who helped to persuade Washington to bring the crisis back under the UN's umbrella. Britain's global influence depends largely on its permanent seat at an effective and respected UN Security Council. The organisation will be shunted into irrelevance, diplomats fear, if President Bush unilaterally goes to war.

Even as envoys scurried in New York to craft a new resolution on Iraq, the Pentagon was privately briefing on plans to deploy 250,000 ground troops in the country to spearhead an assault aimed at toppling President Saddam and his regime.