FOREIGN Secretary Robin Cook todaysaid he could not live with the guilt of allowing the "fascist" Saddam Hussein to use his chemical and biological weapons to destroy a Middle Eastern city.

In an exclusive interview with the BEN, he made clear that the use of nuclear weapons was not ruled out if the Iraqi dictator used them in the conflict.

He hoped that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's mission to Baghdad today would broker a deal, but made clear Prime Minister Tony Blair was ready to order British forces to attack.

He said: "I'm not a pacifist and I've never been a pacifist.

"Indeed I come from a left-of-centre perspective which has got no great ideological problem with fighting fascism and that is what we confront in Saddam.

"I cannot conceive of any greater ethical threat than chemical or biological weapons, particularly when they are in then hands of somebody like Saddam, who is plainly irrational and obsessed only with his own regional ambition. "I don't know I could find it easy to live with myself if, five years from now, Saddam emerged using weapons to wipe out a city in the Middle East and I knew that I had let him develop that capability."

He denied Britain was poised to launch nuclear weapons in response to a chemical or biological attack, but Mr Cook refused to totally rule out their use.

"We're not thinking of using nuclear weapons, we're not planning to use nuclear weapons, we do not intend to use nuclear weapons, but if he were to use such weapons, there would be a proportionate response."

Mr Cook said there was broad support for military action both among the international community and the British population. "The paradox is that the more we show resolve and unity in being ready to take that military action, the better the prospect we have of getting a diplomatic solution because Saddam is a man who only responds under pressure," the Foreign Secretary added.

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