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Any US military role in Liberia will be "very limited in duration and scope", intended only to help West African peacekeepers get established there, Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday.

Powell made it clear that the US was not interested in a long-term peacekeeping or "nation-building" effort, saying it was a matter for west African states and the United Nations.

Powell, briefing reporters in Pretoria accompanying President George W Bush on a five-nation African tour, was speaking hours after embattled Liberian President Charles Taylor called for US intervention in his conflict-wracked country.

The United Nations and The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) have also suggested the United States should play a lead role.

"If there is US participation, particularly on the ground, we fully expect and have made it clear to our friends in the international community and the UN that we see it as being very limited in duration and scope," Powell said.

Any US role would be "really for the purpose of getting Ecowas in there in sufficient strength to do the long-term rebuilding effort, stabilising effort," he said.

Powell also said that following reports from a US assessment team in Liberia, Bush would be able to make a decision on US involvement "over the next several days," a position repeated often by the administration in recent days.

In Monrovia, Taylor said in an interview yesterday: "Americans should come here because they spoiled it, straight up.

It's not going to get fixed unless they come.

If America spoils something, who is going to fix it, except God?"

Taylor, who now controls only a fifth of his country, founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century, also launched a new appeal for international peacekeepers and promised to quit as soon as they arrived.

"We have called for a multinational force," he said.

Taylor said he had accepted an asylum offer from Nigeria to end the dragging civil war, as it was "in the interest of the Liberian people.

"But that call for me to leave the country was not made by the Liberian people," he said adding that Bush had tied "everything to my departure.

"I cannot continue to see the Liberian people suffer ... so I will leave the country, I'll go in exile, in orderly fashion as soon as the troops arrive," he said. - Sapa-AFP.

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