The United States said on Friday it had "very convincing evidence" Iraq possessed banned weapons as a transatlantic rift widened over whether Baghdad should be disarmed by force. U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton, Washington's top arms control diplomat, said Iraq has maintained an extensive program for the production of weapons of mass destruction, including long-range ballistic missiles banned since the 1991 Gulf War .

"That is information that we have, and I think that, at an appropriate time and in an appropriate way, we will make the case about Iraq's violations," Bolton told a news conference in Tokyo during the third and last stop of a tour of Asia.

The comments echoed those made by U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz who said President Bush  had a "powerful case" against Iraq.

"We have a case grounded in history. We have a case grounded in current intelligence that not only comes from American intelligence but many of our allies," he told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Thursday night.

The campaign by U.S. officials to win support for its stance on Iraq, which points increasingly toward war, comes just days before U.N. weapons experts deliver a much-anticipated report on the first two months of arms inspections.

It also followed a diplomatic scuffle between the United States and some traditional allies over the pace of the U.S. military mobilization in the Gulf and whether inspectors should be given more time to hunt for banned weapons.

Veto-holding Security Council members France, China and Russia have indicated their support for an attack on Iraq is far from assured. Germany and Canada have also urged the United States to give inspectors more time.

And Turkey, which the United States hopes will provide bases for its troops and aircraft in the event of war, has so far been reluctant to commit.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed France and Germany as representing "old Europe" in their opposition to war on Iraq and said they were isolated in their positions.

APPEAL FOR CALM

German and French media across the political spectrum reacted angrily on Friday to the U.S. criticism, as French President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin appealed for calm.

That message did not make it to Greece, where an estimated 10,000 anti-war protesters descended upon Nafplio to try to disrupt a European Union labor ministers' meeting where officials are discussing, among other things, the economic impact of another Gulf war.

Iraq also overshadowed discussion of economics at the Davos, Switzerland, gathering of the global economic and political elite where government and business leaders are already concerned about weak global growth.

The dollar hit fresh three-year lows against the euro as concerns grew the United States would have to foot the bill alone for any swift, unilateral strike on Iraq.

In Iraq, U.N. inspectors visited just one site on Friday, the al-Qaqaa missile installation 40 miles south of the capital Baghdad.

Chief arms experts Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, who will deliver a report to the United Nations  on Monday, have said since returning to Iraq on November 27 after a four-year absence inspection teams have not found a "smoking gun." But they have criticized Baghdad for failing to fully cooperate.

Washington has stressed in recent days that cooperation is the key to whether war can be averted and that time is running out for Baghdad to abide by U.N. resolutions demanding they disclose existing weapons programs or provide evidence past programs have been eliminated.

"It's important that people understand that whatever the inspectors were able to find, Iraq for the 12 years since the end of the Persian Gulf War has engaged in a systematic campaign of denial and deception in an effort to conceal its weapons of mass destruction from the inspectors," Bolton said.

PHOTO CAPTION

Iraqi children make victory signs during a protest in Baghdad January 23, 2003. Iraq urged Turkey to reject U.S. requests for military support in any attack on Baghdad as six Middle Eastern states met in Istanbul to discuss ways of avoiding a potentially destabilizing war. (Faleh Kheiber/Reuter