BAGHDAD -- Iraq's state-run press called Friday on the UN Security Council to stand up to the United States and declare the U.S. military buildup in the Persian Gulf a "clear aggression" threatening g

world peace. "The Security Council stands today before a decisive crossroads in its history," said ***Ath-Thawra***, mouthpiece of the ruling Baath

Party. It is "engaged in an internal and public conflict between a majority seeking that the council carry out its role in spreading and consolidating international peace and security, and a minority, led by the United States, that continues to exert pressure and blackmail to force the council to give up such a role and become a mere cover for the logic of aggression and hegemony and the language

of war and destruction. "The core issue that the Security Council now has to counter, forcefully and clearly, is not just to confront U.S. attempts to legalize the aggression but the council now has to move to the phase of putting an end to the continued U.S. threats against Iraq,"

***Ath-Thawra***. "It also has to consider the current U.S. military presence in the region as a clear aggression to international security and to the security of the states of the region, besides being a clear escalation toward aggression." Some 150,000 U.S. forces are already in the Persian Gulf rigion, 70,000 of

them in Kuwait. ***Ath-Thawra*** said "a clear and strong international will, accompanied by Iraq's serious and honest cooperation, puts the ball in the court of the Security Council which has to respect laws and stop the evil U.S. scenario, which is leading the world to a major and true catastrophe." On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States was not threatening or blackmailing the elected members of the UN Security Council to vote in favor a new resolution

authorizing the use of force to disarm Iraq. Powell said he and other U.S. officials were using only the facts of Iraq's defiance of Security Council Resolution 1441 -- which gave Baghdad a last chance to disarm of face "serious consequences" -- to make their case for a second resolution which could be introduced as early as next week. (AFP)