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By Mike Peacock and Nadim Ladki

LONDON/BAGHDAD, Jan 7 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair urged the world on Tuesday to back any U.S.-led war against Iraq or pay the price for weakness, and London and Washington beefed up their firepower in the Gulf region.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein thundered fresh defiance, saying Iraq would be no pushover for an invader, as a U.N. Security Council meeting on January 27 was increasingly seen as possible showdown time for war.

U.S. President George W. Bush kept up an almost daily battle of words with Saddam, demanding once again that he surrender any weapons of mass destruction.

"Should he choose the other course, in the name of peace, the United States will lead a coalition of the willing to disarm the Iraqi regime of weapons of mass destruction and free the Iraqi people," Bush said in a speech in Chicago.

He has warned before that the United States may fight alone if the United Nations does not, even though his closest ally Britain has stressed any war should have broad, global support.

Britain made clear it was still standing firmly alongside the United States on Tuesday, announcing it was calling up some 1,500 reservists and earmarking naval ships for the Gulf -- but it insisted military action was not a foregone conclusion.

"Unless the world takes a stand on (weapons of mass destruction)...we will rue the consequences of our weakness," said Blair, presenting himself as a coalition-builder in support of Washington, as he did after the September 11 attacks.

BLAIR WOOS THE WARY

Blair also said Washington must do more to help solve problems that were low on its agenda but high up for other countries, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and poverty in the developing world, if it was to win support on Iraq.

"(Other countries) want the U.S. to listen back," he said in a speech to British diplomats in London that seemed designed to woo support from a largely wary Muslim world and from European nations suspicious of Washington's post-Cold War dominance.

French President Jacques Chirac underlined the difficulties of achieving Blair's aim of consensus on world issues, issuing a clear warning to the United States against unilateral action. He told French troops to be ready but stressed "the international community should only resort to war as a last resort".

Strategic U.S. ally Saudi Arabia said it needed U.N. proof Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction before deciding whether it would allow its bases to be used for any attack.

All eyes will be on chief U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix when he gives the Security Council an interim report on Thursday on Iraqi compliance with searches before delivering a fuller assessment on January 27.

So far U.N. arms inspectors have not reported any evidence to support the case for war after weeks of searches. London and Washington say they have intelligence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction but Iraq says it does not possess such arms.

The United States is pouring warplanes and ships into the Gulf region and plans to at least double its 60,000 troops already there.

U.S. WAR PLANNERS HEAD FOR GULF

U.S. Central Command, which would direct any attack on Iraq, was moving war planners to a base in Qatar from its headquarters in Florida, a U.S. military spokesman said on Tuesday.

In other mobilisation moves, the U.S. Navy said it would soon have two carrier battle groups ready to sail toward Iraq if ordered to do so. Two others are already in the region.

Though the inspectors have said their work could take all year, January 27 has taken on significance because military experts say the Pentagon would favour waging war against Baghdad before the fierce heat of Iraq's summer from around April.

Iraq is already locked into skirmishes with British and U.S. planes enforcing "no-fly" zones over the north and south.

It said on Tuesday that two civilians were killed and 13 wounded when U.S. and British aircraft bombed southern Iraq on Monday. Washington said precision-guided weapons had been used against mobile military radars in response to "Iraqi hostile acts" against Western planes.

Saddam warned the United States on Tuesday that Iraq was no easy target like Taliban-run Afghanistan proved to be, saying he ruled a country with a stable government and armed forces that were stronger than they had been in the 1991 Gulf War.

"It seems that what the enemy called the fall of the Taliban regime is tempting it to launch an aggression against Iraq," Saddam told officers of his elite Republican Guards.

State television broadcast defiant pictures of thousands of men and women volunteer soldiers in combat fatigues and carrying AK-47 rifles marching near Baghdad.

U.N. inspectors hunting for banned weapons took to the sky for the first time on Tuesday, flying in helicopters to a site near the Syrian border.

A U.N. Security Council resolution passed in November directed Iraq to reveal any nuclear, biological or chemical arms programmes and disarm itself or face "serious consequences".

The resolution opened the way for the inspectors to return to Iraq after a four-year absence to resume a mission that began at the end of the Gulf War. 

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