MOSCOW, July 8 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Russia denounced on Monday, July 8, as “absolutely inadmissible” any military action against Iraq, in a direct warning to the United States.

“The Iraqi problem can only be resolved through political-diplomatic means on the basis of U.N. Security Council resolutions,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

“Any other options, especially military, are absolutely inadmissible,” it added.

The U.S. administration has repeatedly threatened to launch a military strike on Iraq to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein, which it accuses of developing weapons of mass destruction.

U.S. daily newspaper, the New York Times, reported Friday, July 5, that a top secret U.S. military document outlines a massive, three-pronged attack on Iraq by land, sea and air with as many as 250,000 troops and hundreds of warplanes.

“Hundreds of warplanes based in as many as eight countries, possibly including Turkey and Qatar, would unleash a huge air assault against thousands of targets, including airfields, roadways and fiber-optics communications sites,” the paper added.

The daily also said special operations forces or covert C.I.A. operatives would strike at depots or laboratories storing or manufacturing Iraq’s suspected weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to launch them.

“None of the countries identified in the document as possible staging areas have been formally consulted about playing such a role,” officials said, underscoring the preliminary nature of the planning.

The existence of the document that outlined significant aspects of a “concept” for a war against Iraq as it stood about two months ago indicates an advanced state of planning in the military even though President Bush continues to state in public and to his allies that he has no fine-grain war plan on his desk for the invasion of Iraq, the paper noted.

Yet the concept for such a plan is now highly evolved and is apparently working its way through military channels, the paper added.

According to the New York Times, Bush received at least two briefings from Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the head of the Central Command, on the broad outlines, or “concept of operations,” for a possible attack against Iraq. The most recent briefing was on June 19, according to the White House.

“Right now, we’re at the stage of conceptual thinking and brainstorming,” a senior defense official said. “We’re pretty far along.”

Administration officials say they are still weighing options other than war to dislodge Hussein. But most military and administration officials believe that a coup in Iraq would be unlikely to succeed, and that a proxy battle using local forces would not be enough to drive the Iraqi leader from power, the paper reported.

Although senior administration officials continue to say that any offensive would probably be delayed until early next year, there are several signs that the military is preparing for a major air campaign and land invasion.

Thousands of marines from the First Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton, Calif., the marine unit designated for the gulf, have stepped up their mock assault drills, a Pentagon adviser said.

The military is building up bases in several Persian Gulf states, including a major airfield in Qatar called Al-Udeid. Thousands of American troops are already stationed in the region, the paper reported.

The prospect of U.S. military action was heightened last week after talks between Baghdad and the United Nations on the return of U.N. weapons inspectors to Iraq broke down.

The Russian foreign ministry, however, called for a resumption of dialogue which would lead to renewed cooperation by Baghdad with U.N. inspections in return for an end to U.N. sanctions imposed for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration, which has labeled Iraq - along with Iran and North Korea - as the world’s “axis of evil,” is demanding the return of arms inspectors barred from Iraq since pulling out in December 1998.