US plans to occupy Iraq for 18 months

THE US plans to occupy Iraq for 18 months after toppling Saddam Hussein in its most ambitious effort to administer a country since controlling affairs in Germany and Japan after the Second World War.

Pentagon chiefs hope a period of military control will prevent any interference from neighbouring Arab countries and give the military time to find and destroy any unused weapons of mass destruction.

The White House has rejected the idea of creating a provisional government before an invasion, according to an administration document summarising the plans which was obtained by the New York Times.

Instead, it intends to install a civilian administrator after the war to administer Iraq's economy, rebuild its schools and political institutions, and run aid programmes.

The US also plans to prosecute officials in the conquered government, but will limit this to Saddam's most senior aides.

Key parts of Saddam's government infrastructure, including the revolutionary courts and the special security organisation, are to be dismantled but most of the machinery of government will be reformed and maintained.

The plans also include a quick takeover of the country's oil fields to pay for reconstruction, although Bush officials stress the oil will belong to the Iraqi people.

America has two objectives, according to the document, to "preserve Iraq as a unitary state, with its territorial integrity intact" and to "prevent unhelpful outside interference, military or non-military," an apparent warning to other countries in the area.

The White House has been keen to play down concerns that the US would embark on a programme of

nation building, or become a colonial power in Iraq.

Many Arab countries are worried a US military commander would have the complete authority that American General Douglas MacArthur exercised as supreme commander in post-war Japan. But the military commander in Iraq is expected to have unquestioned authority in the first few months after the war.

"Remember, you will have decapitated the command and control for the Iraqi military forces," a senior White House official told the Times.

"Who is going to make sure that score-settling does not break out, that there is not fights between the various ethnic communities?

"It is going to have to be the US military for some period of time. And if there is a military command there will certainly be a military commander."