CAMP DAVID, Maryland, Sept 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. President George W. Bush said Saturday, September 15, the United Nations must show "backbone" in disarming Iraq or Washington would "deal with the problem," while Baghdad furiously rebutted Bush's statements.

"Enough is enough," Bush said. "The UN will either be able to function as a peacekeeping body as we head into the 21st century, or it will be irrelevant. And that's what we're about to find out."

"This is a chance for the United Nations to show some backbone and resolve as we confront the true challenges of the 21st century, a chance for the United Nations to show its relevance," Bush told reporters after meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.

"But make no mistake about it, if we have to deal with the problem, we'll deal with it."

In his weekly radio address earlier in the day, Bush accused Iraq of providing support to terrorist organizations, which political analysts say has never been proven.

"By supporting terrorist groups, repressing its own people and pursuing weapons of mass destruction in defiance of a decade of UN resolutions, [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein's regime has proven itself a grave and gathering danger," Bush said.

Despite international condemnation for unilateral action on the part of the U.S. in regards to Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney said separately that he sees international support building for a U.S.-led move to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"There is support building out there now ... there are going to be a lot of countries that will say, 'Look, the U.S. is serious, President Bush is serious about this, and we basically want to sign on and support that effort,'" Cheney told CNN.

Cheney also warned that Iraqi acceptance of arms inspections may not be enough to satisfy the United States, contradicting prior U.S. official statements that an invasion on Iraq was primarily based on Saddam Hussein’s refusal to allow in weapons inspectors.

"It's not ... going to be enough here to simply invite inspectors back in and say, 'There, the problem is solved,'" he said.

Iraq reacted furiously Saturday to Bush's speech to the UN General Assembly on Thursday. The government daily Al-Qadissiya, wrote: "The evil and lying speech of Bush is just the product of the sick mind of an administration which takes pleasure in living in a bloodbath and breathing gun smoke."

Al-Jumhuriya, another government paper, said: "Bush junior said nothing new in his lie-filled speech to the General Assembly, which led him to trot out the same false allegations and lying accusations to incite the world against Iraq."

Berlusconi, meanwhile, applauded Bush's UN speech, and said Italy would remain a sincere ally as a common solution is sought.

But, following in the footsteps of his European colleagues and much of the Arab world, Berlusconi said he would support a UN-sanctioned move against Iraq - avoiding comment on whether Italy would support a U.S. unilateral move.

"The United Nations cannot continue to have its image undermined and its decisions ignored," he added.

Arab leaders across the Middle East Saturday voiced reservations about such a move against Iraq. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced that he would tour the Middle East next week to gather support for an initiative aimed at convincing Iraq to allow back UN weapons inspectors and avoid a war.

In Beirut, Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said a U.S. strike on Iraq "would expose a number of states in the region to troubles that would not serve, especially in the current circumstances, the interests of the United States."

Sheikh Mohammed bin Mubarak Al-Khalifa, the foreign minister of Bahrain - which could be a staging ground for any U.S. intervention - expressed hope that the United Nations could find a peaceful solution.

Meanwhile, a British newspaper reported Sunday that Britain's long-awaited dossier against Iraq would contain the first definitive evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime trained some of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qae’da lieutenants.

According to The Sunday Telegraph, the dossier also contains information relating to the alleged manufacture of chemical and biological weapons in and around Baghdad and Saddam's bid to produce nuclear arms.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair will publicly release the dossier on September 24.

At the United Nations, Saturday, Iraq reiterated that the return of UN arms inspectors must be linked to the lifting of the crippling sanctions imposed on it after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

The almost 12-year-long sanctions have left over 1.5 million people - mostly children- dead and millions of other starving and impoverished.