Ready to Attack ‘Sooner Rather Than Later’: Bush : Gulf crisis: Meeting at White House is grim. President holds out little hope that Hussein will withdraw. U.S. shuts the door on French proposal seen as ‘linkage.’

President Bush, in an extraordinarily grim meeting with congressional leaders, said Monday that with Iraq showing no signs of withdrawing from Kuwait before the U.N.-imposed deadline of midnight tonight (EST), U.S.-led forces will be prepared to attack “sooner rather than later.”

Bush indicated he holds out little hope that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein might start pulling his troops out in the final hours before the deadline, but he said he would take any such move into account in plans for a military strike, leaders said afterward.

The United States, meanwhile, shut the door on what may have been the final hope for last-minute diplomacy: a peace proposal put forward by French authorities that would link an international conference on the Palestinian question to an Iraqi withdrawal.

Even before the idea could be presented to Iraq, a State Department official said Monday: “A plan like that wouldn’t have our support. It’s not time to start backsliding from the U.N. resolutions. We wouldn’t accept linkage, nor would we walk back from the deadline.”

And Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who also attended Monday’s White House session, told the congressional leaders that when U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar met Sunday with Hussein in Baghdad in a last-ditch effort to persuade him to withdraw from Kuwait, Hussein “kept him cooling his heels and treated him rudely.”

While the President gave no timetable for military action, several of the more than 20 congressional leaders who met with him said he more than once mentioned it would be better to attack sooner rather than later. And several leaders later indicated they are resigned to a war that probably would begin with massive air strikes against Iraqi forces.

Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) asked Bush to state his current intention, and the President declared firmly: “I haven’t changed my view. Force may well have to be used if he doesn’t withdraw by the deadline.”

“There’s nothing that leads to an intellectual judgment that war may be avoided,” said House Speaker Thomas J. Foley (D-Wash.) in describing the meeting.

Bush was described as grim-faced during the 70-minute closed-door meeting in the Cabinet Room, and congressional leaders said the tone was somber throughout the session.

“It was the gloomiest meeting at the White House I’ve ever attended,” said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.). “Bush was down, Baker was down. Bush was tired and very serious and understandably so. Everybody realizes it’s real now.”

Leahy, who told the President, “We’re praying for you,” said: “Absent some unexpected move on the part of Saddam Hussein, war or force is going to be necessary. The U.S. has taken every step it can.”

By the time the meeting ended shortly after 5 p.m., darkness was beginning to fall, and several hundred peace demonstrators holding lighted candles were walking up and down the sidewalk on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House. Inside the fence, about a dozen uniformed officers of the Executive Protective Service formed a cordon in front of the White House.

Some military officials have suggested the United States will not have all its assigned forces deployed and prepared for war until mid-February. But Defense Secretary Dick Cheney told the congressional leaders that morale is high among American forces in the Persian Gulf and that they “are ready for action.”

Saudi Arabian officials have urged Bush not to delay attacking Iraq much beyond the deadline, according to an informed source, who said “they are as interested in the United States cutting down the Iraqi military infrastructure to size as they are in seeing the Iraqis driven out of Kuwait.”

Rep. William L. Dickinson of Alabama, ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, quoted the Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar ibn Sultan, as saying “it would be a mistake” to wait beyond Feb. 1 to launch an attack.

And Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee, said “morale is high and everything is ready to go. . . . There’s no point in waiting except for reasons of weather.”

House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), who led opposition in the House to a resolution authorizing Bush to use military force against Iraq, told the President he was glad he had asked Congress to debate the war issue. “It was important to the country and helpful and informative to the people,” said Gephardt.

After three days of passionate debate in both houses, the resolution was passed last week by the House, 250 to 183, and by the Senate, 52 to 47. Bush signed the measure Monday after his meeting with congressional leaders.

“I am grateful to those of both political parties who joined in the expression of resolve embodied in this resolution. To all, I emphasize against my conviction that this resolution provides the best hope for peace,” he said.

The President, who earlier had insisted congressional authorization was not necessary for him to order a military strike in the gulf, told the congressional leaders Monday that he will continue to consult closely with them on the crisis.

Foley, Gephardt and other Democratic leaders who opposed the resolution, including Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, emphasized that once the debate was over and the measure passed, they were united behind the President in whatever military action he orders in the gulf.

Discussing the failure of the Perez de Cuellar mission to Baghdad, Dickinson said, “This was the last shot we had for achieving peace.” Dickinson has a son who is a sergeant in an Army reserve unit that is slated to go to Saudi Arabia in March.

Dickinson said he does not expect U S. forces to attack immediately after tonight’s deadline. “You’re going to see a bunch of feints, a bunch of movements to keep them off balance,” he said.

Asked if the military has a game plan, he said: “You betcha there’s a game plan. They know what they’re going to do and when they’re going to do it. They’ve got it in their pockets.”

Earlier Monday, both Baker and White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater had said that while hope was fading, it was still not too late for Hussein to take action to avert war.

The White House remained silent on when an attack might take place. But Fitzwater said Iraq will be living on “borrowed time” after midnight and that once the deadline passes, “everyone has to assume that military action could occur at any point.”

Baker returned to Washington Monday after a grueling 18,190-mile trip through 11 countries on which he compared notes with other officials about the possibility of war with Iraq.

In Ottawa, his last stop on the trip, Baker said the time for talking had just about ended.

“The consultations that I have been carrying on throughout this trip are to notify members of the coalition . . . with respect to how we see the next steps,” he said. His use of word notify rather than consult indicated the basic decisions have already been made.

Baker said he found “total solidarity” among the international coalition put together by Bush to oppose the Iraqis, but he added that “there are, of course, one or two differences with respect to one or two individual countries.”

While Baker did not elaborate on the differences, the Administration has been concerned that several of the coalition partners might refuse to participate in an offensive action against Iraq. In fact, Syria has said its forces would be used only for defensive measures.

Times staff writers Norman Kempster, Paul Houston and Doyle McManus contributed to this story.