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US President George W. Bush Monday bluntly warned Baghdad to meet its UN-imposed deadline to avoid a war, as UN weapons inspectors in Iraq announced key monitored equipment has gone missing.

The inspectors carried out their work with time running out for the Baghdad regime, which has until Sunday to make a full public inventory of any ballistic missiles and nuclear, biological or chemical weapons or face "serious consequences" -- generally seen as a codeword for a US-led attack.

"Any act of delay, deception, or defiance will prove that (Iraqi leader) Saddam Hussein has not adopted the path of compliance and has rejected the path of peace," Bush said at a Pentagon event. "So far, the signs are not encouraging."

Bush pointed to Iraqi anti-aircraft fire at US and British air patrols in "no-fly" zones and the tone of Iraq's written pledge to abide by a November 8 UN disarmament ultimatum.

Bush said that war "is the last option for confronting threats," but that the "temporary peace of denial and looking away from danger would only be a prelude to broader war and greater horror."

Bush's comments followed the British Foreign Office release in London of an extensive report detailing rights violations of Saddam's regime.

The report, which comes some two months after another British dossier alleged that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction, states that torture "is systematic in Iraq," with the most senior figures in the regime "personally involved" in the process.

"Saddam Hussein has been ruthless in his treatment of any opposition to him since his rise to power in 1979," the 24-page report alleged. "A cruel and callous disregard for human life and suffering remains the hallmark of the regime."

An official said the report -- accompanied by a fuzzy videotape of what it said were Shiites and Kurds being beaten, gassed and killed -- was meant "to remind the world that abuses in Iraq extend far beyond weapons of mass destruction."

Meanwhile, Bush named Zalmay Khalilzad as a special envoy to "free Iraqis," charging him with preparing for a regime change in that country after Saddam's ouster, the White House announced in a statement.

Khalilzad -- currently special envoy for Afghanistan -- "will serve as the focal point for contacts and coordination among Free Iraqis for the United States Government and for preparations for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq," the statement said. Khalilzad will continue as special envoy to Afghanistan.

In Baghdad, a spokesman for the UN weapons inspectors, Hiro Ueki of Japan, announced inspectors found key equipment missing on the fifth day of otherwise smoothe inspections.

An earlier team of UN weapons inspectors tagged several pieces of equipment at the Al-Waziriya facility north of Baghdad in 1998 -- and some of that equipment is now missing.

Iraqi officials said some of the equipment had been destroyed by the bombing of the site, and some had been transferred to other sites, Ueki said.

Asked by AFP how the inspectors planned to reconcile the discrepancy, he said: "We will check if the equipment has been transferred."

Experts received immediate access to installations for the al-Karama missile project, where the banned al-Hussein, an improved version of the Russian Scud missile, was made and under permanent video surveillance.

Iraq's al-Husseins had a range of 650 kilometers (400 miles) and were banned by the United Nations at the end of the 1990-1991 Gulf War, with Baghdad allowed to keep only short-range missiles.

The site director, General Mohammed Saleh Mohammed, insisted the inspections went "without a hitch." He called US and British allegations of weapons of mass destruction -- Baghdad regularly denies the accusations -- a "pack of lies."

Under a UN Security Council disarmament ultimatum approved November 8, Baghdad must by then present a "currently accurate, full, and complete declaration of all aspects" of any weapons of mass destruction programs.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was more vague when talking about Sunday's deadline, stating that it "will mark the beginning of a process, a process of verification to find out whether or not Saddam Hussein is indeed telling the truth and whether or not he has indeed disarmed."

Meanwhile Vice President Dick Cheney told leaders of the US National Guard in Denver, Colorado, that Saddam's regime has had "high-level contacts with al-Qaeda going back a decade and has provided training to al-Qaeda terrorists."

Cheney said Iraq seeks chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and could turn such weapons over to terrorists like al-Qaeda, which carried out the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

"Confronting the threat posed by Iraq is not a distraction from the war on terror. It is absolutely crucial to winning the war on terror," Cheney said, according to a transcript released by the White House.

"The war on terror will not be won till Iraq is completely and verifiably deprived of weapons of mass destruction."

Meanwhile, US and British warplanes responded to anti-aircraft artillery fire and bombed Iraqi air defense sites in northern Iraq, the US military said.

The US European Command said coalition warplanes were patrolling the no-fly zone over northern Iraq when they came under fire from sites about 16 kilometers (10 miles) east of Mosul.

Iraq denies possessing any weapons of mass destruction, but Washington says it has intelligence information proving the contrary. 

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