"If it's not today, it's within a matter of a very few days," he said.

The full 15-nation Security Council was to meet later Saturday to discuss the resolution, and it was likely to be adopted in the next couple of days, Bolton said.

Bolton said the resolution would be the first of two. The second could spell out a larger political framework for peace between Israel and Hizbullah or set the conditions for a peacekeeping force to deploy to Lebanon.

"We're prepared to continue to work tomorrow in order to make progress on the adoption of the resolution but we have reached agreement and we're now ready to proceed," Bolton said. "We're prepared to move as quickly as other members of the council want to move."

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was at President George Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, but will head back for a vote.

"She will be prepared to go to New York," U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

In an interview with MSNBC on Friday, Rice said "we are moving, I think pretty effectively now, with the French and with others in the United Nations, toward a cessation of hostilities ... on the basis of a kind of political framework that would prevent this return to the status quo ante."

"We then have to move in a second phase to a security force, and we do have to get to a sustainable and permanent cease-fire. This is a process that we will be beginning with the resolution that we hope will be ready, and I believe will be ready, within days," she said.

She said if anyone were to disarm Hizbullah, it would be the Lebanese, not an international force.

Since fighting began, the U.N. Security Council has failed to take any action to stop it, primarily because of opposition from the United States, Israel's closest ally.

Any deal will have to gain the acceptance of both Israel and Hizbullah, which could prove difficult.

Israel has said it will not halt its campaign against Hizbullah unless an international stabilization force is in place. Meanwhile, Hizbullah's chief spokesman said Thursday the group will not agree to a cease-fire until all Israeli troops leave Lebanon.

Israel also says it wants to continue fighting for up to two weeks to seriously diminish Hizbullah's military capability.

A current U.N. force already in Lebanon could initially monitor implementation of the resolution, but a more robust international force would be deployed to support Lebanese forces in providing security and implementing a permanent cease-fire.(AP-Naharnet) (AP photo is of U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton)