The dispute has been going on since November

With military action in Iraq possible within days the government is worried the armed forces, and their ageing Green Goddess fire engines, will be unable to offer sufficient cover.

Last week the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) announced a 24-hour strike for Thursday, after rejecting a 16% pay offer linked to modernisation from local authority employers.

The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, is understood to be reviewing whether the FBU would be in breach of the law by striking.

THE NEXT STRIKE Thursday 20 March 24 hours from 1800 GMT Subject to endorsement from union members at a meeting on Wednesday 19 March

Under 1992 legislation from the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act the attorney general can ban a strike if it "wilfully or maliciously endangers life".

The Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and Fire Service Minister Nick Raynsford briefed Lord Goldsmith last week on their concerns for public safety if a strike goes ahead.

The Deputy Prime Minister's office said on Sunday: "The Attorney General has been consulted. It is his decision not ours."

News of a possible legal bar to the strike comes after the shadow defence secretary accused the FBU of bad timing in view of the possibility of war.

Our pay claim should have been settled last year. It could have been settled last week. FBU spokesman

Bernard Jenkin said their actions made it appear as if they were "Saddam's friends", but the union said his remarks were an insult to the many firefighters who were either ex-servicemen or army reservists.

On Saturday Mr Jenkin called on the government to ban Thursday's strike.

He said: "I do think this strike looks as though it's timed impeccably to coincide with the hostilities.

"It does look as though the leadership of the Fire Brigades Union are behaving like Saddam's friends."

The FBU said his comments were "insulting, foolish and odious" and added that his remarks were potentially defamatory.

Mr Jenkin later backtracked, saying: "I accept that the FBU are not friends of Saddam Hussein. But they have been behaving like friends of Saddam Hussein and they have laid themselves open to that misinterpretation."

Party leader Iain Duncan Smith also tried to defuse the row.

'Not necessary'

He said Mr Jenkin merely meant that if the FBU was on strike at a time when the country was at war, then "in essence, it will be undermining our own forces because they are going to be under huge strain".

The Conservative leader said the Tories were making a simple appeal to the firefighters: "Don't do it. Whatever else, whatever the merits of your dispute, don't do this, because it is just not necessary."