Iraq is rapidly heading towards disintegration

Prince Saud said he was so worried he is warning "everyone who will listen" in the Bush administration, the Times reported.

"There is no dynamic now pulling the nation together," Prince Saud told reporters at the Saudi embassy in Washington. "All the dynamics are pulling the country apart."

Prince Saud blamed much of Iraq's ills on US decisions such as designating "every Sunni as a Baathist criminal," he told the Times.

While the prince did not refer to the Bush administration directly, he was referring to an order issued by US proconsul Paul Bremer soon after the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein.

Bremer banned all members of Saddam's largely Sunni Arab Baath Party from holding government jobs.

Prince Saud said that top US officials counter his dour view with the administration line that things will improve once voters approve Iraq's new constitution in October, and national elections are held in December. But in the meantime there will be increased violence.

"What I am trying do is say that unless something is done to bring Iraqis together, elections alone won't do it. A constitution alone won't do it," Prince Saud told the Times.

Iraq's potential division into a Kurdish state in the north, a Sunni state in the centre and a Shiite state in the south would "bring other countries in the region into the conflict."

Turkey has long threatened to forcefully prevent Iraq's Kurds from declaring independence. And Saudi Arabia is concerned over the regional influence of the theocratic government of Shiite Iran.

Iran already enjoys strong sympathy in Iraq's Shiite-majority government, and would potentially increase its influence over a Shiite state in southern Iraq.

"This is a very dangerous situation," he told the Times, "a very threatening situation."

Meanwhile, President George W. Bush on Thursday rejected a growing chorus of calls for a swift US withdrawal from Iraq as he warned of escalating violence there ahead of an October constitutional referendum.

"Some Americans want us to withdraw our troops so that we can escape the violence," he said in remarks after getting a briefing at the Pentagon. "I recognise their good intentions, but their position is wrong."

Bush's comments came as he faced recent polls showing a collapse in popular support for the war and his handling of it, and as anti-war protestors planned a major demonstration for Saturday in Washington.

"Withdrawing our troops would make the world more dangerous and make America less safe. To leave Iraq now would be to repeat the costly mistakes of the past that led to the attacks of September the 11th, 2001," he said.