KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine, 6 October — US President George W. Bush said that war with Iraq may be unavoidable and that delay was not an option to keep a defiant Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from deploying weapons that could cause “massive and sudden horror” for America.

“There’s no negotiations. There’s nothing to talk about. We don’t want you to have weapons of mass destruction... Now you’ve got to show the world you don’t have them,” Bush said of Saddam at a ceremony in Manchester, New Hampshire, honoring law enforcement officers and members of the National Guard.

“We must not ignore reality. We must do everything we can to disarm this man before he hurts one single American,” Bush told hundreds of flag-waving supporters in a preview of a prime-time television speech next week in which he will explain to the American people and the US Congress why he thinks the United States should be prepared to take military action.

Bush, before attending a fund-raiser expected to generate $500,000 for Rep. John Sununu’s Senate bid and other New Hampshire Republicans, called the Iraqi president “one of the most brutal dictators in modern history” who has deceived the world about his weapons of mass destruction for 11 years.

“We hope that Iraq complies with the world’s demands. If, however, the Iraqi regime persists in its defiance, the use of force may become unavoidable. Delay, indecision, and inaction are not options for America, because they could lead to massive and sudden horror,” Bush said in his weekly radio address that aired yesterday.

Bush, spending the weekend at his family’s seaside compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, will devote a rare televised evening address tomorrow to making his case against Saddam and outlining the threat he says is posed by Baghdad’s alleged chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. He will deliver the 20-minute speech at 0000 GMT on Tuesday in Cincinnati, Ohio, a Midwestern venue that appears to have been chosen to show that he is seeking to prepare the American heartland for the possibility of war.

Bush also urged Congress yesterday to support a measure authorizing the use of force to disarm Iraq if necessary, while key US ally Turkey denied a report that Washington had requested the use of its bases for an attack on its southern neighbor. “By supporting the resolution now before them, members of Congress will send a clear message to Saddam: His only choice is to fully comply with the demands of the world,” Bush said in his weekly radio address yesterday.

Several thousand anti-war demonstrators took to the streets in the Italian cities of Florence, Milan and Bologna to protest against any war, while in Geneva, Switzerland, officials said an estimated 2,000 marched in a similar protest.

In Crete, EU defense ministers called yesterday for a rapid diplomatic solution to allow UN inspectors back into Iraq, papering over splits within the 15-member bloc on the US threat of military action. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana rebuffed questions about the threat of US military action, but signaled a basic difference with Washington by saying the EU is not in favor of regime change in Baghdad.

“Our objective is not regime change,” he told reporters at the end of a two-day informal meeting of ministers on the Greek island of Crete.

“The inspectors have to go and to do their job. For that we have chosen together with many countries including the United States the route of the United Nations. He said the UN Security Council, struggling to hammer out a resolution on Iraq, had to be given time to work.

British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon also rebuffed questions about Iraq pending further developments at the UN in New York. (The Independent)