Interim Iraqi authority mooted

THE Bush administration is considering quickly installing an interim Iraqi authority in areas under the control of US-led forces while the government in Baghdad is cut off from the rest of the country, administration officials said yesterday.

Installing such an authority in southern Iraq that would include some prominent Iraqi exiles before President Saddam Hussein is toppled in Baghdad may help to blunt charges the US military intends to keep full control over Iraq for the foreseeable future.

"Certainly it's an option," an administration official said. "Increasingly the country is slipping away from (Saddam's) control, and that's only going to continue."

Air Force Gen Richard Myers, chairman of the US military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, estimated US-led forces had so far taken 45% of Iraqi territory.

The administration remains divided, however, over what positions to give Iraqi exile leaders, as well as over the role the United Nations would play in governance and reconstruction.

While the US military plotted its next move, the White House warned of potentially deadly battles ahead for US-led forces amassed on the outskirts of Baghdad.

"I still want to caution everybody. We are still in the middle of a battle a battle that remains deadly. It's not over," a senior administration official said.

The official said the US military had a range of tactics at its disposal to accomplish Bush's main goals for the war eliminating the country's alleged weapons of mass destruction and removing Saddam from power.

US President George W Bush, who declared on Thursday that "a vice is closing" around Baghdad, planned to meet at the White House late yesterday with a group of Shia, Sunni, and Christian Iraqis, who fled the country and now live in the United States.

America's ally in the war, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, pledged yesterday that a post-war Iraq would be run by Iraqis, not Britons or Americans, and that British troops would not stay in the country any longer than necessary.

Britain is treading a tightrope between apparent US plans to have an American-controlled administration in the aftermath of the war and insistence from many European powers that the United Nations should be in charge.