National unity and international cooperation – the White House sets out this week to secure the first, and build up the second, in its drive to take on Saddam Hussein and his weapons programs.

Judging by the attention the Bush administration will give Iraq over the coming days – in everything from a presidential speech Monday night making a Tony Blair-style case against Hussein, to nearly nonstop negotiations at the United Nations for a new weapons inspections regime – the week will provide a critical test of whether the confrontation with Iraq ends up looking international or American.

The American people are the first on the list of those who want this conflict to be the world, and not just the US, against Hussein, according to a string of opinion surveys. The White House appears to understand this. But President Bush is also weighing the timetable and conditions he believes he needs to ensure that Saddam is no longer allowed to "lie and deceive," against an interest in the sometimes drawn-out process of building a world coalition.

While the president has shifted since last summer, when he suggested that neither new congressional authorization nor a return to the United Nations was necessary to legally take on Saddam, there is still clearly a limit to how long Mr. Bush will wait. And that is especially true when some of his close advisers remain skeptical of either weapons inspections or a broad international coalition.

"The White House position right now is, as much multilateralism as possible, but as much unilateralism as necessary," says Robert Lieber, a foreign-policy expert at Georgetown University in Washington. "There's a desire for international backing on this, but if that starts to look impossible or negotiations bog down, the administration will move ahead with whatever adhoc group of actors it can assemble."

The White House, for both domestic and international political reasons, wants as united a homefront as possible as it proceeds on Iraq. That explains several events slated for this week:

• In a speech delivered in Cincinnati Monday night, Bush will lay out Saddam Hussein's continuing effort to deceive the world on his amassed weapons, and will make the case that the Iraqi leader constitutes a threat to America – something Bush's critics say he has not yet proven.

• The Pentagon is promising press briefings this week detailing new Iraqi efforts to hide weapons and weapons-development programs before an eventual return of international weapons inspectors.

• Congress is expected to approve legislation this week authorizing Bush to use force against Iraq. Some senators, both Democrats and Republicans, are holding out for taking action only after a UN resolution is approved, but momentum appears on the side of a vote this week.

The Senate's more guarded response on Iraq seems to mirror the American mood. A poll released last week by the respected Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland shows that while a strong majority supports an invasion of Iraq if it is carried out with multilateral support, only a small minority favors an invasion by America acting alone.

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