IRAQ rejected a U.S.-British plan Saturday for the United Nations to force Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to disarm and open his palaces for weapons searches, warning that Baghdad would stage a fierce defense if the allies attacked.

　　Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz also said the United States would suffer losses “that have not been sustained for decades” if it sought to topple the Iraqi leader.

　　Ignoring the Iraqi rejection, the United States and Britain lobbied for Russian and French support for a tough new U.N. resolution, which would call on Iraq to reveal all materials relating to weapons of mass destruction and to give U.N. weapons inspectors unfettered access to presidential sites.

　　If Saddam fails to comply, the resolution would threaten the use of “all necessary means” against him, U.S. officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

　　But Paris and Moscow, both of which hold veto power on the five-country U.N. Security Council, showed no signs of agreeing to the U.S.-British proposal. The Russians and French, as well as the Chinese, oppose adopting a resolution threatening force before inspectors are able to return to Baghdad.

　　Iraq announced Sept. 16 that inspectors could return unconditionally under previous U.N. resolutions. But Iraqi officials have said they would reject any new Security Council demands.

　　“Our position on the inspectors has been decided and any additional procedure is meant to hurt Iraq and is unacceptable,” Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said Saturday.

　　Aziz, meanwhile, warned that the United States would suffer major losses if it invades Iraq.

　　“Any aggression on Iraq will not be a picnic, instead it will be a fierce fight where America will suffer losses that have not been sustained for decades,” Aziz said. “Iraq is determined to resist and defeat any U.S. attack.”

　　The White House took a dim view of the Iraqi position.

　　“It’s clear that Saddam Hussein wants to drag his feet so he can build up his arms,” President Bush’s spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said Saturday while traveling with Bush in Texas. “This is not a matter to be negotiated with Iraq. This is a matter of whether the United Nations is willing to stand up to Iraqi defiance.”

　　More than 150,000 Britons from all regions, ages and social backgrounds, marched in central London Saturday, urging Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush not to invade Iraq.

　　As they wound their way from Embankment on the River Thames to Hyde Park, many of the marchers stopped to shout through the gates of Blair’s 10 Downing St. residence.

　　“Tony Blair, shame, shame, no more killing in my name,” went one chant.

　　“We believe it would be wholly immoral and wrong and criminal for the United States and Britain to attack Iraq and inflict casualties upon innocent people,” Tony Benn, a former Labor Party legislator and veteran left-winger, told a huge crowd seated in Hyde Park. “We must see it is not allowed to happen.”

　　(SD-Agencies)