"It is too late for Saddam Hussein to remain in power, it is not too late for the Iraqi military to act with honor and protect your country by allowing the peaceful entry of coalition forces to eliminate weapons of mass destruction," said Bush who gave Saddam 48 hours to go into exile or face war.

"I urge every member of the Iraqi military and intelligence services: if war comes, do not fight for a dying regime that is not worth your own life," Bush said in a televised address.

"Our forces will give Iraqi military units clear instructions on actions they can take to avoid being attack and destroyed," he said.

"All Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to this warning: In any conflict your fate will depend on your actions. Do not destroy oil wells a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people, do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, including Iraqi people," he said.

"War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say 'I was just following orders.'"

He stressed a war would be directed at the Saddam regime, not the Iraqi population.

"Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them: If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you," said Bush.

But he stressed that "the only way to reduce the harm and duration of war is to apply the full force and might of our military, and we are prepared to do so."

"The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near," he said.

"In free Iraq there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms," Bush said.

In recent weeks, US and British warplanes dropped hundreds of thousands of leaflets over Iraq, encouraging military units to desert, discouraging them from using weapons of mass destruction, mining waterways, or releasing oil into the Gulf.

"Leave now and go home," one of the leaflet said. "Watch your children learn, grow and prosper."

The leaflets also said that British and US forces did not want to fight the Iraqi people, and provided radio frequencies on which coalition broadcasts can be heard.

WAR.WIRE