Washington ? Facing European resistance, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday the United States would be able to put together a strong coalition if it decided to go to war with Iraq.

“I don’t think we will have to worry about going it alone,” he said.

Powell also raised hopes that Germany and France, skeptical of using force to disarm Iraq, might reach a consensus with the United States in the U.N. Security Council after inspectors report next week on their searches for hidden weapons.

“We listen to others and we find a way forward,” Powell said at the State Department as he met with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of Britain.

In fact, he said, while the Bush administration thinks a new U.N. resolution to authorize force probably is unnecessary, it is keeping an open mind because many Security Council nations “would prefer to see a second resolution if it comes to the use of military force.”

In Berlin, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said he could never accept the idea that war was inevitable.

“This is a common position of France and Germany, and we will not be diverted from it,” Schroeder said.

Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said Germany would try to arrange to have the weapons inspectors report again after Monday.

And in Athens, Greece, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said there was not enough evidence from the inspections to justify military intervention.

“We want to hope that no country will take unilateral action outside of U.N. resolutions,” Ivanov said. “If that happens Russia will do all that is necessary to return the process to the diplomatic path.”

President Bush spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin about cooperation on Iraq, the White House said. The Kremlin said Putin told Bush “the main criterion” in assessing the situation should be the inspectors’ findings.

Powell and other administration officials left little doubt, though, that Bush was moving closer to a decision to go to war — with U.N. support or without it.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, seeking support from the Council on Foreign Relations, told the influential private group in New York that disarming Iraq was critical to the war on terrorism.

Wolfowitz said, “We know from multiple sources that Saddam has ordered that any scientists who cooperate during interviews will be killed, as well as their families.”