WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has spoken of "regime change" in Iraq for at least 18 months, said Sunday the United States might not seek to remove Saddam Hussein if he abandoned his weapons of mass destruction.

It was the latest in a series of recent comments by Powell that seemed to back away from the goal of deposing the Iraqi president, which remains Bush administration policy.

"We think the Iraqi people would be a lot better off with a different leader, a different regime," Powell said. "But the principal offense here is weapons of mass destruction," and that's what the U.N. resolution is working on.

He said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he expects the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution setting strong guidelines for inspection teams to be sent back into Iraq.

But, he added, "The issue right now is not even how tough an inspection regime is or isn't. The question is will Saddam and the Iraqi regime cooperate -- really, really cooperate -- and let the inspections do their job.

"All we are interested in is getting rid of those weapons of mass destruction."

Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, said the administration expects to have a resolution ready this week for Security Council members to consider.

"The goal here is to disarm Saddam Hussein. And in order to do that, we are going to have to test his willingness to cooperate this time around," she said on CNN's "Late Edition."

"If he is not willing to disarm, then the world is going to have to disarm him."

Powell was an early proponent of the regime change policy. He told the House International Relations Committee on March 7, 2001, that the administration was considering such a policy. This February, he told the same committee that "regime change" was policy, and the United States "might have to do it alone."

Backing away

He began backing away in an Oct. 2 interview with USA Today's editorial board. Should Iraq be fully disarmed, he said, "Then in effect you have a different kind of regime no matter who's in Baghdad."

On Sunday, Powell said, "If the inspectors do their job, and we can satisfy the world community that they are disarmed, that's one path. If we can't satisfy the world community that they are disarmed, that takes us down another path."

On ABC's "This Week," Powell put it this way: "Either Iraq cooperates, and we get this disarmament done through peaceful means; or they do not cooperate, and we will use other means to get the job done."

The United States says Iraq has biological and chemical weapons and could be close to making nuclear arms. Congress has given Bush authority to use military force, after coordinating with the United Nations to see whether inspections can be made to work.