America's president is such a hypocrite ... I'm certainly smelling the stench of oil for the first time in quite a while. I'm moving to Canada.

***

President Bush, in a solemn White House address to the nation on Monday night, had given Mr. Hussein and his two sons 48 hours - until 8 p.m. Washington time on Wednesday - to leave Iraq for exile or face a United States-led military invasion.

But both Mr. Hussein and his eldest son, Uday, brusquely turned down the suggestion today.

``The proposal should be that Bush leaves office in America, he and his family,'' Uday Hussein said today. Americans, he added, ``should not imagine that they will have a safe spot inside the land of Iraq or outside it.''

***

If Mr. Hussein failed to leave, President Bush warned on Monday night, the United States-led coalition was prepared to wage war ``at a time of our choosing.'' Even if Mr. Hussein fled, United States officials said, American troops would enter Iraq to ensure stability while a new government was formed and humanitarian needs were tended to.

***

Canada, one of the closest United States allies, ended months of uncertainty by making clear that it would not join in a war lacking United Nations authorization.

Spain, which stood firmly alongside the United States and Britain in the diplomatic effort to win United Nations authorization, will not send troops, though it will provide a medical support ship, and later humanitarian and reconstruction aid for Iraq. More than 80 percent of Spaniards oppose war, opinion polls show.

In Copenhagen, an antiwar protester doused Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen with red paint, meant to symbolize blood, shortly before the Danish leader announced that the country would send a submarine, a corvette and elite troops. The Danish parliament narrowly approved the deployment.


U.S. Poised to Strike After Hussein Rejects Ultimatum