The Saturday announcement comes a day after chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix appealed for intelligence that would help inspectors find anything Iraq may be hiding.

Also this weekend, U.S. President George W. Bush delayed his January trip to Africa in part because of the Iraqi situation, and sources say he is ready to sign off on deploying 50,000 U.S. troops to the Persian Gulf early next month.

U.S. military sources Friday told CNN that Bush had essentially signed off on a plan to deploy 50,000 U.S. troops to the Persian Gulf region in early January, which would bring the total number of American forces there to more than 100,000.

Gen. Tommy Franks, the head of the U.S. Central Command, met with Bush and his national security team for a second consecutive day. At the top of the agenda was to put the troop deployment plans in place, and to discuss which troops will head first to the region and what targets are to be selected for any possible war on Iraq, the sources said.

لا حول و لا قوة الا بالله لو كانوا بيفتشوا عن دبوس كانوا حصلوه .