LAJES AIRBASE, Azores, 17 March 2003 — On the brink of war with Iraq, US President George W. Bush said at a crisis summit that today will be the last day for diplomatic efforts to peacefully disarm Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

“We concluded that tomorrow is a moment of truth for the world,” Bush told a news conference yesterday in the Azores, joined by the leaders of Britain, Spain and Portugal.

“Tomorrow’s the day that we will determine whether or not diplomacy can work,” Bush said. He confirmed that today will be the last day a US-backed resolution to authorize war could be voted on at the UN Security Council. Once diplomacy was exhausted, US officials said, Washington would move to a war footing and Bush would address the United States as early as today, issuing a final ultimatum to Saddam and giving aid workers and others time to leave Iraq.

The US-backed resolution, which faces a French veto even if the needed nine votes to pass it could be found, would demand that Saddam eliminate alleged weapons of mass destruction programs by today. A Spanish source briefing reporters on Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar’s plane said Spain was not confident the votes were there.

Aznar and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said one final round of diplomatic contacts would be made to win agreement on an ultimatum for Saddam that would authorize war.

Shortly after the summit, Saddam displayed fresh defiance, saying Iraq would fight “anywhere in the world” if the United States invaded. “When the enemy opens the war on a large scale, it should realize that the battle between us will be waged wherever there is sky, earth and water,” he told a group of military officers at a meeting.

Saddam said it was a “great lie” that Iraq still had banned weapons and accused the United States of appointing itself chief judge of the world. “Who appointed America the unjust judge of the world so that it can say if this country has a weapon of a certain range that it should destroy?”

The Gulf was already preparing for war.

On Saturday night, Saddam put Iraq on a war footing, dividing the country into four military zones. The move matched measures taken ahead of a four-day bombing blitz by Britain and the United States in December 1998. The military carve-up put the central region around Baghdad and Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit under the command of his younger son Qusay, who heads the elite Republican Guard.

In an indication of the importance of the region, in which US defense officials believe Iraq’s elite forces are entrenched, Defense Minister Sultan Hashem Ahmed was named second in command to Qusay. The northern region, including areas under the control of Kurdish rebels, was placed in the hands of Iraqi No. 2 Izzat Ibrahim, while Saddam’s cousin Ali Hasan Al-Majid was put in charge of the overwhelmingly Shiite southern zone, including the provinces of Basra, Dhi Qar and Muthanna.

The other mainly Shiite zone of Furat Al-Awsat south of the capital was placed under the command of RCC member Mizban Khader Hadi, who was also entrusted with control of the border guards.

In Kuwait, the staging ground for any assault on Iraq, a Cabinet minister said he believed war would start within 10 days. Information Minister Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahd Al-Sabah told a news conference: “I think war is quite near...I think that in not more than 10 days we will hear the war will start.”

The dispute within the UN Security Council has caused a bitter split, with France, Germany and Russia sharply opposing any automatic authorization of force and calling for more time to allow international arms inspectors to work.

The allies in the Azores showed little interest in French signals it could accept a 30-day or 60-day limit on the inspections. “Without a credible ultimatum authorizing force in the event of non-compliance, more discussion is just more delay,” Blair said.

In New York, a UN spokesman said the Security Council will hold closed-door consultations today at 3:00 p.m. (2000 GMT) on French-German-Russian proposals on a disarmament timetable for Iraq.

Aznar and Blair told the news conference in the Azores that they were committed to the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Critics have accused the United States of focusing on Iraq to the detriment of Middle East peacemaking.