The US Congress was poised to authorize President George W. Bush to attack Baghdad as the five permanent members of the UN Security Council inched toward agreement on an Iraq resolution and Church of England bishops frowned on a "preventive" war.The head of Iraq's armament program meanwhile invited the Bush administration to "immediately" inspect two sites where Washington suspects Baghdad of having resumed its prohibited weapons programs.

"The American administration can send whoever it wants to visit the An-Nasr and Euphrates sites, which it suspects of being used to produce weapons of mass destruction," said Abdel Tawab Mulla Howeish, also the military industries minister.

"If the American administration wants to see the two sites, we urge them to inspect them immediately," Howeish told a press conference in Baghdad Thursday.

Congress Wednesday debated proposals that would authorize Bush to unilaterally go to war if the United Nations failed to rid Iraq of its alleged chemical and biological weapons and weapons programs, and end its nuclear weapons program.

The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote between 1800 GMT and 2000 GMT, according to a spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert. More than 300 of the 435 House members are expected to support the measure.

In the Senate, where at least 60 of the 100 senators support the measure, a vote on limiting debate to 30 hours is scheduled for 1415 GMT, according to an official at the office of Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle.

A vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate could be delayed by threats of a filibuster by an opponent, Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia.

On Capitol Hill, a handful of outnumbered Democrats struggled throughout the day against the bipartisan rush to grant Bush broad war-waging powers.

But Senate Minority leader Republican Trent Lott said he expected the measure to be "broadly supported" in the Senate, with even more backing in the House.

At the White House, spokesman Ari Fleischer said that Washington would like to see Iraqi President Saddam Hussein tried before a war crimes tribunal similar to the one created following the Bosnian War.

The five permanent Security Council members meanwhile appeared close to agreement on tough new terms for disarming Iraq.

Diplomats said Wednesday that the United States seemed willing to drop some proposals to give inspectors more muscle in exchange for a resolution spelling out severe consequences if Iraq failed to disarm.

Russia's initial opposition to tough action against Iraq is seen as softening.

China is wary of military action, but sticks to an official line that it is too early to comment on any draft resolution.

Russia, China and France had come under intense pressure from the United States and Britain, which prefer a single, tough resolution calling for an attack if Saddam refuses to allow full and free arms inspections.

But intense talks have failed to move Paris, which US diplomats see as the key council member to win over, from its insistence that military force not be the automatic reaction if Saddam thwarts inspectors.

The White House said Bush and French President Jacques Chirac agreed by telephone Wednesday to try to narrow their differences on how best to disarm Saddam.

Chirac's spokeswoman said the two leaders agreed to "strive to integrate the respective concerns of France and the United States."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair was due to leave London for Russia on Thursday for two days of talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin aimed at narrowing differences over Iraq.

Briefing British journalists in Moscow on the eve of Blair's visit, a senior aide to Putin said that so far, the international community "has seen no evidence" that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.

"That includes the well-known document published in London," Sergei Yastrzhembsky, Putin's special aide for Chechnya, was quoted in London's Times newspaper as saying.

In a dossier last month, Blair's government alleged that Saddam might be only a year or two away from possessing a nuclear bomb and could deploy chemical and biological weapons in 45 minutes.

"You could call it PR support for possible strikes," Yastrzhembsky was quoted as saying.

The London Times reported Thursday that 52 bishops of the Church of England had warned that war against Iraq without further backing from the United Nations was unacceptable.

In an unprecedented document, the bishops said that a "preventive" war would cause immense suffering.

They recognized that military action can sometimes be justified "as a last resort" to enforce compliance with Security Council resolutions.

"We nonetheless hold that to undertake a preventive war at this juncture would be to lower the threshold for war unacceptably," The Times quoted the churchmen as saying.

In Tehran, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami voiced doubt during talks with visiting British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw over the threat posed by Saddam, and hit out at the West for supplying Iraq with chemical arms in the first place, the Iranian news agency IRNA reported Thursday.

"There is talk of a foreign invasion of Iraq on the pretext of a campaign against dictatorship and weapons of mass destruction," Khatami was quoted as telling Straw late Wednesday.

"But is the Baghdad government the only tyrannical government, and is there a real threat of Iraq using chemical weapons or weapons of mass destruction?

"Why then was Iraq supported the day it invaded our country? Which powers equipped it with chemical weapons that were used against us and even its own people?" the normally mild-mannered Khatami was quoted as saying.

"Iran is opposed to the launching of a military attack against Iraq," he said

PHOTO CAPTION

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw (L) listens as Iranian Foreign MInister Kamal Kharrazi answers a journalist's question during a press conference in Tehran, October 9, 2002. Straw arrived in Iran on Wednesday on a tour to seek support for a tough U.N. resolution to halt Iraqi President Saddam Hussein 's suspected weapons of mass destruction program. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi