Also Friday, Japan shut down its embassy in the Iraqi capital and ordered its diplomats to leave, citing "heightened tensions," said Yushi Suzuki, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official. 

Taking journalists on a tour of the al-Doura oil refinery in Baghdad, Deputy Oil Minister Hussein al-Hadithi said Iraq would not set fire to its oil installations, as some have feared, but rather would defend them. 

"We have plans to defend these sites with arms. We have an organized defensive force," he said. "We will continue production to supply international markets with oil." 

But he cautioned that the price of oil, which came within a penny of $40 a barrel last week, could rise even more, to between $50 and $70 a barrel. Analysts have blamed the rise in part on war fears. 

Al-Doura is a major oil refinery, whose tall smokestack and plume of fire is a Baghdad landmark. It was bombed during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and again during the 1991 Gulf War. 

This time, several dozen self-described "human shields" are scattered around the installation in an attempt to save the refinery from attack. 

"We are staying here because we think this war is unjust," said Faith Fippinger, a 62-year-old retired schoolteacher from Sarasota, Fla. 

U.N. weapons inspectors visited a former helicopter airfield called al-Aziziya, 60 miles southeast of Baghdad, where Iraq has been unearthing 157 R-400 aerial bombs filled with anthrax, aflatoxin and botulin toxin that it says it destroyed there in 1991. 

Inspectors have taken samples from the material inside and are analyzing it to verify its contents to see if it matches the Iraqi claims. 

Chief inspectors Hans Blix and Mohammed ElBaradei prepared to give assessments of Iraq's disarmament efforts at the Security Council on Friday. Their report was expected to weigh heavily in determining the fate of a resolution authorizing force. 

ElBaradei, the chief nuclear inspector, said he would tell the council that abandoning the weapons inspections makes little sense as long as the Iraqis are actively cooperating. 

"In my area, inspection is working. We are making progress. There's no reason to scuttle the process," he said. 

Blix has indicated he will say that Baghdad is now cooperating "a great deal more" than previously, but not explicitly ask for more time for inspections before any war. He has said the inspections have limited Iraq's military capacity. 

"Whatever capability (Iraq) has, it's smaller than before, and it is very closely guarded," he said. 

Over the past week, Iraq has flattened a third of its banned Al Samoud 2 missiles and has given more information to U.N. inspectors. 

At the same time, Iraq was clearly preparing for war. More sandbagged fighting positions and foxholes appeared throughout the Iraqi capital, and policemen patrolled key intersections in green helmets and Kalashnikov assault rifles. 

The fighting positions, recently seen only outside key installations, now dot the entire city. 

"If the American administration goes ahead and attacks Iraq, it will be committing an act of absolute foolishness," Saddam told a Cabinet meeting, the official Iraqi News Agency said.