He proposed in addition a written report on Mr Clinton's conduct in the Monica Lewinsky affair, a written admission of wrongdoing by the President, a fine, and a decision to leave open the possibility of prosecution once Mr Clinton leaves office.Mr Weld's suggested "deal" coincided with statements by two other prominent Republicans, both New Yorkers - the recently defeated senator Alfonse d'Amato and the Representative Amo Houghton - rejecting the impeachment option.Mr Houghton drew on his industrial experience to argue in The New York Times for a punishment to fit the crime and said he would vote for a "strong rebuke", but not to remove the President from office.But even as the White House was able to mobilise its first Republicans in the President's defence, the party majority on the House judiciary committee was finalising the draft of three articles of impeachment, the formal charges that would form the basis of a Senate trial. Among the five was the Clinton camp's trump card: the former Massachusetts governor William Weld, the first senior Republican to testify to the judiciary committee for the President. Mr Weld's appearance was a crucial element in the White House strategy of trying to sway so-called "moderate" Republicans in the House of Representatives whose votes could determine Mr Clinton's fate.While the judiciary committee is polarised along party lines and a vote for impeachment is taken for granted here, the division in the full House is more fluid, with up to 40 Republicans regarded as moderates in search of a reason not to vote for impeachment.Yesterday, Mr Weld -who resigned as governor last year to focus on an ill-fated attempt to become ambassador to Mexico and later returned to his law practice - set out a five-point compromise designed to satisfy calls for the President to be punished without subjecting him to a trial in the Senate.In order to "preserve the dignity of the country", Mr Weld said, "the most appropriate result is something other than removing this person from his office" But that dignity also required more than a vote of censure. IN THEIR last-ditch effort to save President Bill Clinton from impeachment, the White House yesterday fielded five former prosecutors to argue that the evidence against Mr Clinton was insufficient to support a conviction for perjury, let alone impeachment. While the dispute over documents sounded alarm bells in Washington and London, that alone did not seem grave enough to re-ignite enthusiasm for a military attack.Mr Butler's assessment on the progress of his inspections, which he will give to the Security Council next week, should determine where policy on Iraq goes next. The council has agreed to launch a complete review of the sanctions against Iraq and its compliance with UN resolutions as soon as Mr Butler deems the inspections are on track again.Barring a declaration from Mr Butler that Iraq is blatantly impeding his work, there seems little enthusiasm even in Washington for military strikes as Christmas approaches and as Muslims celebrate the holy month of Ramadan.. If Unscom cannot do its job effectively, we remain poised to act."Iraq has balked at requests from Unscom for several sets of documents that inspectors believe could shed light on its weapons programmes dating back to the Iran-Iraq war.

"Iraq claims that this [inspection] was illegitimate are simply unacceptable, against the law - that is, the resolutions of the Security Council," he said. "So we were blocked and that is very serious."In Washington, David Leavy, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said: "We expect full co-operation by the Iraqis. He then added that an "unannounced inspection at Ba'ath Party headquarters was a bit provocative".Mr Butler, however, said yesterday that he was clear that Iraq had illegally stood in the way of the inspectors. Some daylight has been visible for months between the positions of Britain and the US on the handling of Iraq, and the Secretary-General, who favours a swift end to UN sanctions against Iraq.Speaking to a meeting of the Gulf Co-operation Council in Abu Dhabi, Lakhdar Brahimi, a senior aide to the Secretary-General, said "unannounced inspections have been going well". "It appears that such provocative and astonishing methods practised by elements of the Special Commission's inspection teams clearly aim to manufacture crises and problems," he said.There were signs of sympathy with the Iraqi position from within the circle of Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General. Mr Amin accused Unscom of deliberately attempting to stir up a new confrontation. When they said they had no such list, the inspectors withdrew.The news agency was quoting Hussam Mohammad Amin, who is in charge of liaison between the inspectors and the Iraqi government.

Officials in the building asked to see a list of the items the inspectors expected to find. Sanctions imposed on Iraq when it launched its 1990 invasion of Kuwait will only be lifted once Unscom has certified that the country is free of all armaments of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.Mr Butler served notice on Monday that his inspectors were starting a new phase of their work and would be proceeding immediately with surprise inspections of sites.According to the official Iraqi news agency, members of a UN inspection team attempted to enter the Ba'ath Party headquarters yesterday morning. Fresh troops and hardware, rapidly assembled by Washington and London in the run-up to the November confrontation, still remain in the Gulf. An official confirmed yesterday that the US remains "poised to act".Mr Butler is due to report to the UN Security Council next week on the extent of Iraq's compliance with its latest promises and all relevant UN resolutions.

A bombing campaign was called off when Iraq promised to grant UN inspectors unfettered access to all sites.A strike against Iraq could still be ordered at any moment. The Clinton administration appeared to be reacting cautiously to the incident, however. After suspending co-operation with Unscom at the end of October, Iraq reversed its stance on 14 November just as the US and Britain were on the brink of launching military action. Richard Butler, chief of Unscom, the UN Special Commission responsible for rooting out all Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, described the intervention by Iraqi officials as "very serious". Are we going to resist for such a petty reason?"But others say the Europeans have compromised enough and that the entire package is preferential for South Africa. Mr Mandela was banking on public sympathy for South Africa to extract another concession, a diplomat argued..

IRAQ BLOCKED a surprise visit yesterday by United Nations weapons inspectors at a site identified as the headquarters of President Saddam Hussein's ruling Ba'ath Party, rekindling fears that Britain and the United States may yet be forced to mount a military strike against the country. Sales of South African "port" and "sherry" are worth only about 750m rand (pounds 76m), of which 13 per cent comes from exports.An EU official said last week: "We are talking about one of the new democracies They have agreed to phase out the terms for Europe. In his plea to EU heads of government, Mr Mandela argued: "South Africa's economic success is by no means guaranteed and requires an immense effort."After four years of talks the outline of a deal to phase out duties on about 90 per cent of EU-South Africa trade, worth $19bn (pounds 11.5bn) a year, was struck last month at talks in Pretoria.South Africa claims the terms port and sherry have been in wide use for 300 years, but has agreed to a compromise under which it would stop using them on exports to Europe and phase them out over five to 10 years in other foreign markets.But South Africa insists it must be allowed to continue marketing fortified wines as port and sherry at home and in neighbouring nations with which it has trade agreements."For the ordinary population the agreement cannot be concluded by us surrendering the household names in southern Africa of our own port and sherry," Mr Mandela wrote in his appeal.The row is particularly embarrassing because of the small scale of trade involved. The Europeans are demanding that South African vintners stop using the names "sherry" and "port" for their fortified wines, saying that only Spain can produce wines called sherry and only the Portuguese city of Oporto can label its fortified wine as port. After a direct appeal from the South African President, Nelson Mandela, fell on deaf ears at a meeting of foreign ministers on Monday, the issue will now go to the Vienna summit of EU heads of government this weekend.The wrangle is embarrassing to the European Commission as a deal was supposed to have been reached at the Cardiff summit at the end of Britain's presidency of the EU in June.Instead, when President Mandela arrived he was promised an agreement by autumn, a deadline now extended to Christmas.