UNITED NATIONS/WASHINGTON, 24 October — The UN debate on action against Iraq came to a head yesterday after the United States called a meeting with the full Security Council to discuss its resolution and looked set to force a vote next week.

"I think that the end is coming into sight," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters in Washington. "It is not there yet, but it’s coming into sight." Fleischer said the outcome would be "either an agreement or a failure to reach agreement, and it could be either one right now."

But even as the White House pressured the world body to back its revised proposal aimed at ending a month-long deadlock on action against Iraq’s suspected weapons of mass destruction, it faced continued opposition among UN members and only Britain has said it will back the draft.

The revised proposal that drops explicit authorization of force if Iraq does not comply with UN demands on weapons inspections but leaves the door open for war is opposed by the other veto-holding countries Russia and France, at times supported by China.

By seeking support in the full Council, the United States is putting pressure on Russia and France and may be daring them to veto the draft, diplomats said.

US Ambassador John Negroponte could push the resolution to a vote next week or he could withdraw the resolution entirely, they said. The United States would then make its own decision about any attack against Iraq, although going it alone would jeopardize international political support, they added.

Negroponte said the US draft resolution would be discussed but not necessarily introduced immediately. "Whether we will table a resolution or simply discuss its content, we haven’t finally decided that," Negroponte told reporters about the closed-door meeting.

The United States accuses Iraq of developing weapons of mass destruction — a charge Baghdad denies. Faced with stiff opposition, the Bush administration has dropped an earlier demand for explicit UN authorization for military action against Iraq. But in insisting on intrusive UN weapons inspections, the new US draft recalled that Iraq had been warned of "serious consequences" and said Baghdad was in "material breach" of UN resolutions, according to the text obtained by Reuters.

Russia and France, backed by China, fear this is a hidden trigger to attack Iraq, while diplomats said Washington considered it a warning for Baghdad to take UN Security Council demands seriously.

In Baghdad, Iraq accused the United States of wanting war — with or without Security Council backing. Baghdad’s official Al-Thawra daily newspaper said in a front-page editorial: "There is no need for the Security Council to adopt a new resolution...The US objective is to find a new pretext to launch its aggression on Iraq after all its other pretexts failed, and to try to find a fake international cover for this aggression." And Iraqi President Saddam Hussein vowed that Baghdad was prepared to put up a fight to defend itself. Iraq’s official INA news agency quoted Saddam as telling an Arab journalist that Iraq "was determined to fight to defend its principles, goals and role."

US and British warplanes attacked Iraqi air defenses in a "no-fly" zone south of Baghdad overnight in the second such strike in two days, the US military said. An Iraqi air defense spokesman confirmed the raid but said civilian targets were hit. He did not report any casualties.