"We would like to put a deadline on them," he said in an interview published Friday. "They've got six months. It'll be a difficult deadline to meet, but we've got to get them going." He raised the possibility that the Iraqis themselves could set a timetable in the near future, adding that the US government has asked Iraqi leaders to estimate how long it would take them to write a constitution and conduct elections.
"Now, if they take forever to give us the answer to that question, then we've got a problem," Powell said. "But I think they'll give us an answer fairly quickly." Powell's comments followed US contacts this week with fellow United Nations Security Council members on a new US-backed UN resolution to muster international help, both financial and military, to stabilize post-war Iraq.
The comments also come as the UN's annual General Assembly is under way, amid widespread doubts about the world body's future role in Iraq.
The administration of US President George W. Bush is at loggerheads with France, Germany and Russia -- who opposed the April war to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein -- over a timeline for the transfer of Iraqi sovereignty.
Powell said the constitution drafted by Iraqi leaders would spell out whether Iraq should be governed by a presidential or parliamentary system and clear the way for elections and the installation of a new government in 2004.
Not until then, Powell stressed, would the United States transfer authority from the US-led occupation to Iraq itself.
Powell said it was unlikely that the new UN resolution on Iraq sought by the United States would include the idea of a timetable, which is being negotiated.
However, the resolution could include the general principle of events such as the writing of a constitution, elections and the installation of a new leadership in Iraq, he added.
Powell said the United States would consult with Britain and other close allies on all the discussions he had this week, to redraft the US resolution, adding that a new draft would be "shopped" to Council members.
He said he was sure the resolution would be approved.
On the demand that the United Nations take control of the US-led occupation of Iraq, Powell said the move was not even supported at the United Nations, which on Thursday announced it was pulling more of its staff out of Iraq in the wake of two bombings against its headquarters.
"The U.N. is at the moment drawing down because of the security situation," Powell told The New York Times.
On other Iraq-related issues, Powell expressed disappointment that the search for weapons of mass destruction has produced no concrete evidence so far, but said the war to topple Saddam Hussein had been justified because he had the capacity to produce such weapons and a record of using them.
"I would have expected something to be found," he said. "But it's not clear to me yet that we won't find the evidence we're looking for that would, once and for all, make the case incontrovertible." "I think the war will be seen by history to be justified because we removed a regime that did have these weapons and gave us no reason to believe that they had eliminated them," Powell said.
"If you want to believe the claims of Saddam Hussein, be my guest," he added - Sapa-AFP
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