All Eyes On Sunday Summit

Having failed to persuade enough members of the U.N. Security Council to support their troubled war resolution, President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar planned to meet Sunday to plan a last-ditch effort to win international support.

But France, Russia and Germany on Saturday issued a joint declaration saying there was no justification for a war on Iraq and that U.N. weapons inspections were working.

The trio called for a foreign ministers' meeting at the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday to discuss a "realistic" timetable for Saddam Hussein to disarm. The meeting would follow the latest progress report due to be delivered by chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix.

French President Jacques Chirac has agreed to sit down with Christiane Amanpour for an interview Sunday at the Elysee Palace in Paris. The interview will be broadcast on 60 Minutes Sunday evening on CBS.

At the same time, President Saddam Hussein placed Iraq on a war-footing, dividing the nation up into four military regions under the command of his most trusted lieutenants. Saddam's son, Qusai, was placed in charge of the regime heartland of Baghdad and the president's hometown Tikrit.

Saddam himself retained sole authority to use aircraft and surface-to-surface missiles against the invaders, according to the presidential decree distributed by the Iraqi News Agency.

And Iraq on Saturday invited Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei to visit Baghdad soon to speed up joint cooperation on outstanding disarmament issues, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Mr. Bush said Saturday that crucial days lie ahead for countries interested in promoting security and averting tragedy.

"Governments are now showing whether their stated commitments to liberty and security are words alone - or convictions they're prepared to act upon," he said in his weekly radio address.

The address focused on a gruesomely detailed litany of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's reported atrocities.

CBS News correspondent Mark Knoller reports that the three leaders want to be seen making every effort to avoid war, especially Britain's Blair. He's under tremendous anti-war pressure at home -- particularly within his own party. And Spain's Maria Aaznar is in a similar position, Knoller adds.

The French-Russian-German joint declaration, issued by the Foreign Ministry in Paris said, "We reaffirm that nothing justifies in the present circumstances putting a stop to the inspection process and resorting to the use of force.

"The use of force can only be a last resort," the document said. "We solemnly call on all the members of the Council to do everything possible" for the peaceful disarmament of Iraq.

The three nations, which have been leading efforts to block a quick U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, proposed the foreign ministers discuss "disarmament priorities and draw up a strict and realistic timetable" for Iraq to rid itself of its alleged weapons of mass destruction.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said his country would accept a "tight" timetable for disarmament but not an ultimatum that could automatically trigger war - as Washington seeks. Still, he acknowledged war was becoming inevitable. "It is difficult to imagine what could stop this machine," he told France 2 television.

At the United Nations on Friday, officials said privately that diplomatic efforts were dead and the only question left was whether the three leaders would decide to abandon their resolution giving Saddam a Monday deadline to prove Iraq is disarming or face war - or put it to a vote and face certain defeat.

The Iraqi invitation was made by Saddam Hussein's science adviser, Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi, Iraq's point man on disarmament.

Blix and ElBaradei have visited Baghdad two times since the United Nations resumed weapons inspections in Iraq in November after a four-year break.

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry statement said al-Saadi wanted the two chief inspectors to come to Baghdad to discuss "means to speed up joint cooperation ... in all fields, especially facilitating the verification process of issues considered outstanding by Blix and ElBaradei."

Blix said Saturday he would study the invitation.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said inspectors "would be wise to wait until after the summit before making any determination about going to Baghdad."

With nearly 250,000 U.S. and British troops in the Persian Gulf ready to strike, Iraq has been emboldened by stiff opposition to war at the Security Council, where France and other nations have insisted inspectors should be given more time. As pressure on Baghdad has increased in past months, it has been making gestures to show it is cooperating with inspectors.

The inspectors are demanding Iraq address a number of unanswered disarmament questions - particularly that it account for stocks of anthrax and VX nerve gas that Iraq claims to have destroyed in the early 1990s without offering documentation.

Blix received a 25-page letter from Iraq late Friday on VX nerve agent. Parts of the letter in Arabic will have to translated and studied to determine what is new, and if so, whether it helps to resolve any of the outstanding issues, said Blix's spokesman, Ewen Buchanan.

Iraq had promised a letter on anthrax as well, but Buchanan made no mention of that.

In another bid to show cooperation, Iraqi authorities gave inspectors the names of 183 more scientists involved in Iraqi chemical weapons programs, U.N. spokesman Hiro Ueki said Saturday.

In Baghdad, CBS News correspondent Lara Logan said the new cooperative moves by Iraq are seen as last-ditch attempts to answer the U.N.'s questions on disarmament. But, reports Logan, authorities there know it could well be too little, too late to avoid war.

The Iraqi state-run Al-Jumhuriya newspaper said Saturday that the United States and Britain were at an impasse in the Iraq crisis, "because of Iraq's steadfastness," and that "the world public and official opposition to their war threats against Iraq is growing."

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Saturday that Britain could take lawful military action against Iraq without a second U.N. resolution, and other British officials warned a military strike could be just days away.

Anti-war protesters demonstrated in cities around the world Saturday, including Washington.

Hundreds of thousands of Baghdad residents poured into the streets of the Iraqi capital Saturday to protest U.S. war plans.

The New York Times reported Saturday that Mr. Bush has approved a plan to create an "Interim Iraqi Authority" from the nation's major tribal, ethnic and religious groups to take over as soon as Saddam is deposed. The arrangement was likened to the government that took over in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban.

In the Middle East, preparations for war continued. On Saturday, eight U.S. warships crossed the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea, where they could launch missiles on Iraq without firing them over Turkey, which hasn't approved the use of its airspace. The ships followed five that passed through the canal Friday.

United Nations weapons inspectors oversaw the destruction of three more Al Samoud 2 missiles and a launcher at al-Taji site 12 miles north of Baghdad on Saturday, the U.N.'s Ueki said.

That means 68 of the Iraqi stock of about 100 of the missiles had been crushed since Baghdad met a March 1 deadline to start destroying them, ordered because they were found to have a range beyond the 93 miles permitted by the United Nations.

The inspectors visited the Al-Qa Qa complex which produces chemicals and explosives, 15 miles south of Baghdad, in addition to a medicine warehouse.

Turkey's new government signaled Saturday it would wait at least another week to decide about the deployment of U.S. forces on its soil, or at least the whether to let U.S. forces use Turkish air space.

The Washington Post reports in its Saturday editions that Washington has all but give up hope of getting the OK to use Turkish soil for U.S. troops.

Instead, says the newspaper, the U.S. is now focusing on keeping Turkey from sending its own troops across the border into northern Iraq in the event war comes. Turkey says it wants to send thousands of troops into northern Iraq to prevent the creation of a Kurdish state.

The Post also says quotes a senior U.S. official as saying Washington's offer of billions in U.S. aid and loan guarantees if Turkey approved U.S. troops being based there is now "off the table."