"Decisions have consequences and some of the approaches which were taken by some of our continental colleagues were simply inexplicable to most people in the US," Straw told the BBC.

Britain and France have been seriously at odds over Iraq, with France, Germany and Russia bitterly opposed to the US-led invasion in which British forces played a major role.

"I haven't blamed France for military action," the foreign secretary said.

"I did however criticise France for what I thought was a lack of constructive approach to the implementation of the resolution 1441," he said.

Straw said if France and Russia had joined in discussions at the United Nations Security Council for a "really tough ultimatum" to Saddam Hussein "then I think the war may have been avoided."

"My criticism of my colleagues in France and elsewhere in Europe ... is that they all willed the end, which was the disarmament of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and his compliance with the UN, but they failed to will the means," he said.

Straw said there was a difference between current US relations with France and US relations with Germany.

"I think in Germany there is a greater degree of instinctive affection for the US, partly because of the huge role the US played in saving Germany from the Nazis and in then rebuilding that country, and natural associations between different companies as well," he said.

"So far as France is concerned, it is a much more complicated situation.

"I think both sides are committed to good relations but there is also over-laid this sense that ... they want to set France up as a separate pole, to create a bi-polar world from what is certainly a uni-polar world," he said.

Straw rubbished speculation that the US and British military, who will be first at the scene of any alleged weapons of mass destruction site, may plant materials to incriminate the Iraqi regime and justify the war.

"They won't be planted. We're going to immense care to ensure the veracity of the finds and why the devil would we plant any of this, because this military action was justified on the day that we took it," he said.

"We said it is entirely justified within the terms of (UN resolution) 1441 and all the other resolutions against which the Saddam regime refused to co-operate going back 12 years."

SPACE.WIRE