WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Colin Powell, whose rhetoric on Saddam Hussein has been more muted than that of President Bush and other administration leaders, is heading to an international economic and environmental summit where he will press U.S. concerns with leaders of Africa, Europe and Asia.

Powell, who was departing late Monday for Johannesburg, South Africa, to represent the United States at a U.N. economic and environmental summit now underway, has had a lower profile than other administration leaders on Saddam. Now, he visits a country whose former president is harshly criticizing the U.S. war talk.

"We are appalled by any country, whether a superpower or a small country, that goes outside the U.N. and attacks independent countries," former President Nelson Mandela said Monday.

But while Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush advisers have been vocal in arguing for Saddam's ouster, Powell is concentrating more on laying out the case to world leaders in private settings, say intimates of the secretary.

Iraq should disarm

The secretary, in his consultations with foreign leaders, takes the position that even if Saddam reversed his refusal for 3 1/2 years to admit international inspectors to search for weapons of mass destruction, it would not end the administration's dispute with Baghdad.

Powell says Iraq must go further and disarm, as it promised the U.N. Security Council at the end of the Persian Gulf war to liberate Kuwait in 1991. Whatever views Powell holds beyond that are reserved for the president, say Powell's associates, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Seeking unity

Powell's consultations, either by telephone or in face-to-face meetings, are geared to seeking as much unity as possible on Iraq as a threat to stability in the Middle East as well as elsewhere, these associates say.

In a BBC program marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Powell stressed the need to hold unfettered international inspections in Iraq. "The president has been clear that he believes weapons inspectors should return," he said.

"Iraq has been in violation of these many U.N. resolutions for most of the last 11 years or so," Powell said. "And so, as a first step, let's see what the inspectors find."

Powell's low profile is in marked contrast to the strong public statements by Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice, Bush's assistant for national security.

Cheney has been especially outspoken, accusing Iraq of avidly pursuing nuclear weapons and publicly questioning whether a new round of inspections would be useful.

Bush has said little, and evidently has not made a decision on how to attempt to overthrow Saddam. Powell has given no public indication he disagrees with the administration's goal of ousting the Iraqi leader.