WASHINGTON, September 4 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Against the backdrop of a furious debate at home and abroad over a possible U.S. military strike on Iraq, U.S. President George W. Bush pledged Wednesday, September 4, to seek Congressional approval for any military action against Iraq and said he would explain the "serious threat" Iraq allegedly poses in an address to the U.N. General Assembly next week.

"At the appropriate time, this administration will go to the Congress to seek approval for [what is] necessary to deal with the threat," Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Bush as telling reporters after meeting with Congressional leaders from both the Republican and Democratic parties at the White House to discuss his Iraq strategy.

But Bush declined to directly comment on whether Congress would be able to veto his plans.

In addition, Bush said he would lay out the case against Iraq in a September 12 speech to the United Nations.

"I am going to state clearly to the United Nations what I think," he said, using blunt and plain language to describe what he said was Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s flouting of U.N. sanctions and his refusal to allow weapons inspectors to return.

"I will first remind the United Nations that for 11 long years Saddam Hussein has side-stepped, crawfished, weaseled out of any agreement he had made, not to develop weapons of mass destruction, agreements he's made to treat the people within his country with respect," Bush said.

"I'm going to call upon the world to recognize that he is stiffing the world and I will lay out and I will talk about ways to make sure that he fulfills his obligations," said the American president.

Ahead of that address, Bush said he would be consulting in person and by telephone with various foreign leaders, including those from the four other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council - Britain, China, France, and Russia.

He said he would be discussing Iraq with British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Saturday at the Camp David presidential retreat and on Monday in Detroit with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretian.

He said he also planned to speak by phone with Chinese President Jiang Zemin, French President Jacques Chirac and Russian President Vladimir Putin before his U.N. address.

Bush said he would also speak by telephone with the leaders of China, Russia and France - the other three permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, ahead of his address to the world body.

With the exception of Blair's Britain and Israel, the rest of the world has come out against any U.S. military strike on Iraq.

U.S. lawmakers have also shown a wariness about such a move with some expressing deep concerns that the president was not properly consulting them.

European allies voiced opposition to a unilateral U.S. action that could destabilize the entire Middle east region and Arab states urged quick efforts to avert an attack.

Washington now clearly realizes the need to allay at least European fears over a possible war against Iraq, saying it wants to build an international coalition to resolve the crisis.

Secretary of State Colin Powell "stressed the importance of international coalition-building," Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Wednesday after "very fruitful" talks with him on the sidelines of the Earth Summit in Johannesburg.

Powell "underlined that the United States attaches the strongest importance to the involvement of the international community in the Iraq case," said Rasmussen, whose country is current European Union president.

The White House meeting took place as leaders of all of the European Parliament's main political groups warned Washington Wednesday against launching a military campaign against Iraq without U.N. backing.

"Unilateral intervention without the support of the United Nations would have devastating effects on the entire Middle East," said Enrique Baron Crespo, president of the Socialist group, speaking during a debate on the issue at the parliament's main base in Strasbourg, France.

Germany also stepped up its opposition to a U.S. strike, saying military action had not been fully thought through and risked dragging Washington into a Vietnam-style conflict.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, reiterating that German troops would not take part in an intervention in Iraq, said information available to his government did not show any new threat from Baghdad and an attack could "unsettle" the U.S.-led coalition built after September 11.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer warned Washington that it faced a potential Vietnam-like quagmire if it launched an attack.

"If one wants to remove Saddam Hussein from the country, one would have to occupy it for a long period," he told a German newspaper.

E.U. foreign policy chief Javier Solana was quoted in Germany's Berliner Zeitung daily as criticizing "a preventative war," stressing that "all necessary steps against Iraq should be decided within the framework of the U.N."

In Cairo, top Arab diplomats called Wednesday for rapid action and a "clear signal" from their meeting to avert a U.S. war against Iraq, strongly urging new talks on the return of U.N. arms inspectors to Baghdad.

"We insist on deploying quick efforts to avoid a strike and to find a solution through dialogue with the United Nations," Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa said at the opening of a two-day meeting of the ministers.

Such a dialogue would be aimed at getting arms inspectors back to Iraq and eventually at lifting 12 years of U.N. trade sanctions and ensuring Iraq remains whole, he added.

On Tuesday, a two-day meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), whose members are U.S. allies, ended with a rejection of any strike on Iraq, but the six GCC states also urged Baghdad to readmit U.N. weapons inspectors to ward off an attack.

Saddam, for his part, said on Wednesday he wanted "a comprehensive solution" in line with U.N. resolutions to obtain a lifting of the economic embargo imposed on his country since 1990.